Cover Dr Tian Zhu, co-founder and CEO of biotech start-up GenEditBio, whose father's death sparked a journey into entrepreneurship (Photo: Zed Leets)
Dr Tian Zhu, co-founder and CEO of biotech start-up GenEditBio, whose father's death sparked a journey into entrepreneurship (Photo: Zed Leets)
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Dr Tian Zhu—a Tatler Gen.T Leader of Tomorrow—shares what keeps her grounded while developing in vivo gene therapies at her start-up, GenEditBio
Once an aspiring lawyer, Tian Zhu decided to enter the world of biotech when her father died of cancer. “I felt like I was given the mission to do this kind of work,” she told Tatler, “to treat more people.”
The Gen.T Leader of Tomorrow (Hong Kong) went on to earn a doctorate in pharmaceutics and drug design at the University of Illinois Chicago, spend nearly a decade in pharmaceutical research and business development, and eventually co-found GenEditBio, a Hong Kong biotech that specialises in “DNA surgery”—using genome-editing tools to fix faulty genes inside the body. Alongside her co-founder, Zongli Zheng, a genome-editing expert and associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at City University of Hong Kong, Zhu is pioneering treatments for rare genetic conditions, including TGFBI corneal dystrophy, a group of eye diseases that can cause blindness.
Start-up founder Tian Zhu speaking at the 2026 LEAP East tech conference in Hong Kong (Photo: LEAP East)
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“In the start-up process, there’s always a lot of things happening, so personally it’s like [being] a firefighter, trying to solve a lot of things,” says Zhu. Existing business management advice offered limited help, she says, since MBA-like guides were geared towards larger organisations than young biotechs; instead, she has learnt by doing.
Her leadership so far has combined delegation with direct intervention. “My personal style is that I trust my team,” she explains. “I try to build the team, give them space, a little bit of flexibility to try and to learn by themselves. But on the other side, because we are a start-up, we have to increase the efficiency, so at certain decision-making points I have to push them to make a very straightforward, quick decision.”
In the process of overcoming self-doubt, she has learnt to own her title and, in doing so, bolster her confidence. “If you are the co-founder and also the CEO, you are one of the genes, or the DNA, of your company,” she says. “You have to sometimes be the role model. You have to act, not just say—you have to do.”
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Above A collaborative research effort led by GenEditBio's co-founder and chairman, Zongli Zheng, was published on the cover of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering in early 2026
A collaborative research effort led by GenEditBio's co-founder and chairman, Zongli Zheng, was published on the cover of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering in early 2026
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GenEditBio has made huge strides in its clinical trials since Zhu last spoke with Tatler last year. The start-up’s lead drug programme, GEB-101, received clearance from both the US Food and Drug Administration and China’s National Medical Products Administration to begin a multi-regional trial named Clarity—making it the world’s first in vivo genome-editing treatment targeting TGFBI corneal dystrophy to reach a clinical stage.
So far, GenEditBio has dosed six patients with GEB-101, and the longest follow-up period for one of the patients has reached one year, meaning its “preliminary safety signal is quite encouraging”, Zhu says. It's also pioneering a new tech platform, with the overarching goal of targeting genetic diseases with unmet medical needs based on Crispr gene-editing technology.
When asked how she manages stress amid the rush of experimentation, Zhu describes listening to one specific song: Yesterday, When I Was Young, a song composed by French singer Charles Aznavour. The founder came across the song while reading a book about Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died after a long battle with cancer—and who, in one of his final diary entries in hospital, wrote how he was moved to tears listening to Aznavour’s lyrics, which he described as “affirming one’s life, while also acknowledging that some things are irreversible”.
Above Yesterday When I Was Young (1969) performed by American country singer Roy Clark
Zhu says that listening to the song—and empathising with Sakamoto’s painful journey of coming to terms with his mortality—helps remind her that “all the other difficulties” she faces as an entrepreneur mean little in the face of death.
“When I get frustrated or challenged, I try to imagine I am the one lying on the bed, approaching the end,” she says. What comes to her in these moments is a reminder of her “passion”, Zhu adds, and the gift of pursuing it while living: “I still think I’d want to generate more drugs for the patients, solve the problem, cure disease.”
A version of this article appeared in print as part of our monthly column on Gen.T Innovators. Read more about Tatler's Gen.T community here.
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Cat Wang is an editor at Tatler Asia based in Hong Kong, where she covers business, wealth, innovation, and impact. Previously, she was a Forbes Asia reporter and assistant editor of the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, spotlighting startups and small companies on the rise across the Asia-Pacific. She began her career as a trainee reporter at the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s newspaper of record. Born in New York City, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in political science.
