Caida Lai

Caida Lai (赖才达, "Chris") is the co-founder and CEO of METiS Pharmaceuticals (剂泰医药), an AI-enabled drug delivery platform developer that went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2026 after six years of operation . Born and raised in Taiwan, he holds a PhD in chemical engineering from MIT and previously worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company before joining XtalPi's early team in 2016, where he spent four years immersed in AI-driven pharmaceutical R&D . He launched METiS in Hangzhou in early 2020, just before the pandemic, building it into what Monolith Capital later called "The SpaceX of Pharma" for its work on AI-designed nanodelivery systems . His early funding came from investors including FreeS Fund, which backed four consecutive rounds, and Monolith's Xi Cao, who invested at a stage when, as Lai put it, "there was really nothing" . His partner at METiS is academician Hongming Chen .