Dr. Ting Jia (Ph.D. ’08), founder and managing member at Octagon Capital Advisors, has been awarded the 2025 Weill Cornell Graduate School Alumni Award of Distinction.
The Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences has been recognizing alumni with this award since 1997 to honor their outstanding contributions to biomedical research in education, focusing on science and scholarship, leadership, mentoring and teaching, and service to society.
Dr. Jia (who goes by the nickname “T.J.”) was honored with the award on May 15 at Weill Cornell Medicine’s 2025 commencement ceremony. This marks the first time the award has gone to an alumnus working in industry, rather than academia.
“Of course, I'm very happy, but it's a true honor and I am truly humbled,” says Dr. Jia. “I feel like this is almost full circle for me, because Weill Cornell played such an important and foundational role in shaping my education, shaping my identity as a scientist and also later on as a professional.”
When Dr. Jia entered Weill Cornell Medicine, he thought he might be a bench scientist or a physician. His father was a marine chemist and his mother was a physician. “Part of me really wanted to see how science can help patients, and I think one of the best ways to do that is getting a Ph.D. and really going deep into research,” says Dr. Jia, who grew up in China and earned his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.
Not only did he complete his degree program in just four years and three months, Dr. Jia also published eight papers in top journals, including four as first author. In total, his research results have been cited more than 2,200 times in other publications. He went on to complete a postdoc at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, working under Dr. Eric Pamer, who had been his Ph.D. advisor at Weill Cornell Medicine and was serving as head of the Division of Subspecialty Medicine and the Enid A. Haupt Chair in Clinical Investigation.
“If you asked me to characterize my years at Weill Cornell as a student, it was quite intense, but in the best way,” says Dr. Jia. “I felt like it's really this very vibrant, collaborative scientific environment that constantly challenged me, but at the same time also provided me with the resources to ask questions and find answers.”
Dr. Jia credits Dr. Pamer, who was also a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, for helping him achieve so much, both during his studies and after graduation. “He was an amazing mentor to me,” says Dr. Jia. “When I first entered the school, I wasn't as prepared, but he actually coached me and gave me a lot of direction, and at the same time encouraged me to think independently and to tap into all the resources.”
Dr. Jia’s first job after graduation was as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he learned as much as he could about pharmaceutical research and development, and biotech mergers and acquisitions. He was also a core member of the firm’s private equity practice and led engagements of large transactions in life sciences.
He then joined the private investment firm BVF Partners in San Francisco before spending three years managing investments in the life sciences sector in the New York office of Hillhouse Capital, a Hong Kong-based investment management firm.
Now, as founder and managing member at Octagon Capital, Dr. Jia invests in cutting edge biotech companies. “I’ve always had this interest in translating science into medicine and also helping patients,” says Dr. Jia. “I want to support companies that are at the forefront of doing that, and that's why I'm in the investing business. I can see how innovations are shaping up and how early-stage science translates into medicine, which is the most exciting thing for me: to see that I can shape the future.”
Since graduating, Dr. Jia has stayed very active at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is co-chair of the Weill Cornell Graduate School Alumni Advisory Council, serves on the Weill Cornell Medicine Board of Fellows’ Committee on Research and Entrepreneurship, and is co-chair of the Alumni Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee.
“One major push [at Weill Cornell Medicine] is trying to create or build a community that really supports entrepreneurship,” says Dr. Jia. “How do we translate this intellectual property (IP) into company formation and support entrepreneurs? Many of the faculty have great ideas with great IP, and they also want to have startup companies. So, that's the culture that we're trying to bring forward.”