About the Award / Media Feature

Dr Zhou Lihan, a graduate of the NUS Medicine PhD programme, is the CEO and co-founder of Singapore’s billion-dollar biotech firm MiRXES, which produces the world’s first blood test kit to detect early-stage gastric cancer. During his PhD studies, Dr Zhou, Dr Zou Ruiyang, and their mentor, A/Prof Too Heng-Phon from the Department of Biochemistry, developed ground-breaking technology that detects microRNA. It is the first South-east Asian biotech start-up to achieve a valuation of more than US$1 billion, when it launched its initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) in May 2025.