Novacta Therapeutics Strengthens Leadership Team

Novacta Therapeutics Ltd, a privately held anti-infective biotechnology company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr David Pompliano to the Board of Directors. In addition to his role of non-executive director Dr. Pompliano will also provide strategic direction to Novacta’s R&D team and will hold the position of Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board. The appointment of Dr Pompliano is part of the further development of Novacta’s therapeutic business. Dr Pompliano was the former Vice President and Worldwide Basic Research Head of Antimicrobials at Merck, where he was responsible for the discovery and early development strategy. Prior to that, Dr Pompliano was Vice President and Head of Biology for the Microbial Musculoskeletal and Proliferative Diseases Center for Excellence in Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, where he led a large and diverse group of biological scientists who, in collaboration with medicinal chemists, generated more than 25 small molecule development candidates, including novel structure antibacterials and antimalarials, target-specific cancer therapeutics and osteoporosis medicines. Three of these compounds, Tykerb, Altabax and Promacta, passed FDA review for new drug registration, and five other compounds are in Phase II clinical trials or beyond. Tony Sedgwick, CEO of Novacta, commented:" David is a terrific addition to Novacta’s scientific team and company as a whole. With his extensive experience in the antimicrobial field and exposure to big pharma’s strategy give us a great insight into where value is seen in new anti-infective therapy. His input will be invaluable for the future direction of our new anti-infective unit, Novacta Therapeutics. This appointment further demonstrates Novacta's intention to be a serious player in the field." Mike Dawson, CSO of Novacta, commented:" It is a tremendous asset for Novacta to have access to David’s scientific creativity and judgement as well as his deep understanding of antimicrobial development. We are all looking forward to his input to the development and expansion of our pipeline" Georg Buchner, VP of Corporate and Business Development commented:" It is a real pleasure to have attracted such a high calibre person to Novacta Therapeutics. Since his time in big Pharma we have had a great relationship with him and always appreciated his extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for the antibacterial field, especially for natural products. His involvement with Novacta will give us a unique opportunity to tap into his vast expertise and help us to identify new interesting leads for our pipeline." David Pompliano commented:"I am pleased to be a part of the Novacta team. Various threats to the public health (such as multiply resistant strains, biothreat organisms and emerging pathogens) make it more important than ever to discover antimicrobials of novel chemical structure. Novacta’s core technologies of metabolic engineering and natural products chemistry is a versatile platform for producing antibiotics that will be able to overcome the resistance mechanisms of the most dangerous multidrug resistant bacteria..".