Yu Yu is the Founder of Pleryon Therapeutics, which is a biotech company developing pharmaceuticals based on advanced drug delivery and biomaterials technologies. Their lead pipelines include two programs in ophthalmology, one for age-related macular degeneration and one for dry eye.

Pleryon Therapeutics started when Yu was as an undergrad at HKUST in the Department of Biology. The entrepreneur took a course called "Biotechnology and its business opportunities", with none other than Prof. Ying Chau. "I knew nothing about engineering but I needed to take a course in the School of Engineering so I chose the only one at that time that had a 'bio' in the name. Because I found that I had good 'chemistry' with Prof. Chau, I started to work in her lab in 2007," he says.  Through the guidance of Prof. Chau,Yu became really passionate about bioengineering and decided to pursue a career in this fascinating area. Subsequently he became a PhD student and later a post-doctoral fellow at Prof. Chau’s lab.  

Fast forward eight years and Yu won the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition as a post-doctoral fellow in 2015, founding Pleryon Therapeutics. For many, Pleryon Therapeutics is ticking all these boxes and more. For example, they are establishing long-acting drug delivery for wet age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. Patients need monthly injections directly into their eye(s) because the drugs don’t last very long, and this new technology has the potential to make the drug last for at least 6 months. Other projects include a novel dry eye therapeutics, a biomimetic gene delivery platform, and protein mimetic polymer for osteoarthritis.

One of the issues for scientists in general is adapting to the world of business, this is a challenge that every student at HKUST must face head on. "Entrepreneurship is challenging for scientists like myself because the science world speaks a different language compared to the business world. For example, in science, you need to focus on and talk about very specific problems in great detail in order to solve them. But in the business world, we need a lot of help from different sectors, so we need to be able to describe the big picture and speak ‘human language’ so that people understand and appreciate what you are doing."

Aside from this, Yu was known for his wide range of interests. He is particularly fond of music. He learnt countertenor and tenor voice singing with HKUST music legend Prof Oliver Lo, and performed in many university and local events. He was also the president of HKUST Shaolin Martial Arts Society and learnt Kung Fu for many years with Master Andy Leung, the great-grand pupil of Master Wong Fei Hung. 

Yu advises the current students who want to emulate him, "Even in my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined how much my life would have changed after joining HKUST. My advice is don’t just stick to your dreams but embrace new opportunities and challenges." he adds.

Know more about Yu's story from Alumni Newsletter Winter 2021