Dr. Xu had an illustrious career at Gilead Sciences where she was a senior director, a co-inventor of several successful antiviral therapies, and led the discovery efforts in many therapeutic areas against HIV, HCV, HBV, and cancers resulting in numerous clinical candidates. In particular, she was the project leader for the pharmacoenhancer project responsible for the discovery of Tybost® (cobicistat), a component of Stribild® and Genvoya®, and she played a key role in the HCV NS5A project that led to the discovery of ledipasvir, a component of Harvoni®. Harvoni® and Genvoya® represent two of the most successful pharmaceutical launches and account for multi-billion dollar sales annually.

Dr. Xu holds a B.S. in chemistry from Nankai University (PRC) and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Rice University. She has co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications and holds more than 30 issued patents and applications.