Cynthia Cai Joins Institute’s Board of Directors

The Tharton Consulting founder and president also serves on the boards of several therapeutic companies.

April 1, 2021

The Science History Institute is pleased to welcome Cynthia Cai as a member of our Board of Directors. She is the founder and president of Tharton Consulting LLC, which provides investment and management consulting services. She is also a venture partner of Viva BioInnovator, an equity investor in biotech innovation with novel solutions to cross multiple therapeutic areas. Before that, she served as senior advisor to Northern Light Venture Capital, leading its healthcare investment effort in the United States.

Cai served more than 25 years in leadership positions with Agilent Technologies. As global senior director of marketing, she was responsible for its billion-dollar chromatography, automation, and mass spectrometry business. As business development and product marketing manager, she was involved in multiple acquisitions and divestitures, and led a $500+ million-dollar flagship product development project and its worldwide commercialization into life science and applied markets. 

Cai earned a BA and MEng from Tsinghua University in China, a PhD in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, and an MBA from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania. She serves on the board of directors for F5 Therapeutics, Arthrosi Therapeutics, and AceLink Therapeutics. She has been a regular speaker at healthcare investment conferences including the Biotechnology Innovation Organization Conference, the Redefining Early-Stage Investments Conference, the China Focus at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association Annual Conference, and the Wharton China Business Forum.

More News

Othmer Gold Medal and Bolte Award
news

Science History Institute Announces 2026 Othmer Gold Medal, Bolte Award Winners

UConn professor Sir Cato Laurencin and Alexandria Real Estate founder Joel Marcus will be honored this May in Old City Philadelphia.

colorized printed plate of a fireworks display from the 1922 book Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making
news

Explore the Explosive History of Fireworks with Institute’s New ‘Flash! Bang! Boom!’ Exhibition Opening April 10

Part of America’s 250th celebrations, visitors will discover the origins of and science behind these universally loved pyrotechnics.

Illustration of a burning match from Real Fairy Folks book
news

Science History Institute Joins Philadelphia’s 52 Weeks of Firsts Celebration Honoring America’s 250th Birthday

The March 21 event features the Philly-born invention of the first paper match folder.

    Republish

    Copy the above HTML to republish this content. We have formatted the material to follow our guidelines, which include our credit requirements. Please review our full list of guidelines for more information. By republishing this content, you agree to our republication requirements.