Dr. Zhou Lihan

Dr. Zhou Lihan is on a mission to save and improve lives. He is the CEO of MiRXES, a biotechnology company from Singapore that uses blood tests to detect major cancers in the early stage of the disease. The company’s goal is to make early cancer detection routine and affordable. 

Previously, Lihan was at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research, where he worked with Dr. Zou Ruiyang and Associate Professor Too Heng-Phon to pioneer an ultra-high-resolution technology to measure minute amounts of microRNAs circulating in the blood of cancer patients. That technology led to the founding of MiRXES in 2014, with Ruiyang as Chief Technology Officer and venture builder Isaac Ho as Chief Investment Officer.

The company’s first product, GASTROClear, the world’s first blood test for the early detection of gastric cancer, launched in 2019. Today, GASTROClear is available to patients at a fraction of the cost of other diagnostic tests, fulfilling the trio’s dream of delivering accurate, accessible and affordable early-detection tests to the masses.

When COVID-19 hit, MiRXES leveraged its existing talent, expertise and infrastructure for early cancer detection to produce Singapore’s first COVID-19 PCR test, Fortitude Kit. Since then, more than 10 million Fortitude tests have been deployed in more than 45 countries.

MiRXES remains committed to its core mission: developing screening tests for the world’s top nine cancers. “We strive for the day when preventive health care and microRNA cancer screening tests become an integral part of our lifestyle,” Lihan says. “Millions of lives will be saved and improved, and billions of health care costs could be reallocated to address other pressing medical needs.”

Back to the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Class of 2022