Garheng Kong

Garheng Kong is founder and managing partner of HealthQuest Capital. He has over two decades of experience in the healthcare field as an investor, physician, scientist, and engineer. Garheng’s investments and board directorships have resulted in the IPOs of Cempra (CEMP), Alimera (ALIM), Applied Genetic Technology Corp. (AGTC), Avedro (AVDR), Proteon (PRTO), Histogenics (HSGX) and TransEnterix (TRXC). He has also had board roles in many M&A transactions that include Calibra Medical (J&J), Cellective (AstraZeneca), Serenex (Pfizer), Athenix (Bayer), NovaMin (GSK), Aldagen (Cytomedix), Salveo Specialty Pharmacy (United Health), SARCode (Shire), Spirox (Stryker), and Avizia (American Well). Garheng has been asked to chair the board of seven companies as well. He currently serves on the boards of Alimera Sciences (ALIM), Melinta (MLTN), Avedro (AVDR), Strongbridge (SBBP), Laboratory Corporation of America (LH), Duke University Medical Center Board of Visitors, and various private companies. He has also served on the Duke Medical Center Institutional Review Board (IRB) and as faculty at the Duke Fuqua School of Business as a senior scholar. Garheng’s early career included roles at GlaxoSmithKline, McKinsey and medical device startup TherOx. He has been founder and CEO of two successful biopharma companies (Cellective and Viamet). Garheng received two undergraduate degrees, in chemical engineering and biological sciences, from Stanford, which he attended on an athletic scholarship. He then earned his MD, PhD and MBA from Duke University, graduating at the top of his class in each instance.