Barry Buckland Joins Ancora Board
RENOWNED MERCK EXECUTIVE
BRINGS VACCINE EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE
MEDFORD, Mass. - Ancora Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced today that Barry C. Buckland, Ph.D has joined the company's Board of Directors. A former research and development executive at Merck Research Laboratories, Buckland brings a wealth of experience to Ancora. While at Merck, he participated in the development of a wide range of ground breaking products, including Merck's landmark HPV vaccine GARDASIL®.
"Barry is renowned for his expertise," said Karl White, chairman of Ancora's Board of Directors, "His visionary work with vaccines is transforming the lives of millions of people around the world. He will be an invaluable resource as we take Ancora to the next level."
Buckland spent nearly three decades at Merck, building a world class bioprocess research and development team. In 2009, Buckland and two colleagues were awarded PhRMA's Discoverer of the Year award for their development of Gardasil®, Merck's breakthrough vaccine that works to prevent cervical cancer.
"Ancora Pharmaceuticals' work with carbohydrates is going to broaden the field of biopharmaceuticals generally," explained Buckland. "This discovery platform will enable a whole new approach to vaccine development and is going to change how the field considers selecting and developing vaccines.
"Ancora is able to access vaccine candidates that cannot be addressed by current technologies, and the core antigen structures can be chemically optimized to help elicit improved immune responses. They also can be made at a scale and price that addresses key global markets where cost or market sizes may be critical factors," Buckland added.
Ancora Pharmaceuticals is working on technology to enable the rapid production of synthetic carbohydrates for use in drug discovery and industrial applications, focusing primarily on vaccine applications. To do this, the company has developed a carbohydrate synthesis platform that is recognized internationally as the most advanced in the world. Synthetic carbohydrate therapeutics represent an untapped opportunity within the pharmaceutical industry to develop promising vaccines against some of today's worst infectious diseases.
Buckland is well-versed in taking therapies from the drawing board to the market. He was the leader in the process development and transfer to manufacturing of all of Merck's biologically made product candidates in the last twenty years, including the shingles vaccine ZOSTAVAX® and the rotavirus vaccine ROTATEQ®, as well as the natural product based cholesterol-reducing medicine ZOCOR®.
Currently, Buckland serves as CEO of BiologicB, LLC, a company that helps develop affordable vaccines for low-income countries.
Ancora Pharmaceuticals is a private biopharmaceutical company based in Medford Massachusetts. In 2009, the National Institute of Health (NIH) awarded a $600,000 grant to Ancora for its carbohydrate-based vaccine to combat malaria.
"Malaria affects up to 10 percent of the world's population and the World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted that as much as 50 percent of the population will be at risk over the coming decades," said John Pena, President of Ancora. "Our vaccine candidate is showing a remarkable ability to protect against severe malarial disease in pre-clinical models. Having Barry Buckland as part of the Ancora team will greatly facilitate our getting not only the malaria vaccine but also our entire vaccine portfolio to those marketplaces that need it most."