Released: Thursday 1st December 2011

Edinburgh based vaccine development company BigDNA has expanded its Advisory Board with the appointments of Dr Russell Greig and Dr Alex Chanas. Both executives each have over 30 years top-level experience in the pharmaceutical industry - Dr Greig having held senior positions at Glaxosmithkline/SR One and Dr Chanas at Pfizer Ltd.

Dr Greig has spent the majority of his career with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. His most recent role within GSK was as President of SR One, GSK’s Corporate Venture Group based in the USA. Previous positions include President of Pharmaceuticals International and Senior Vice President of Worldwide Business Development for R&D. He recently served as a member of the Board of Directors for vaccine company Genocea Biosciences, and Rib-X Pharmaceuticals. He is currently Chairman of Syntaxin and of the Novagali Supervisory Board, and is the acting CEO of vaccine adjuvant company Isconova. Dr Greig is also a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council.

Over the last 14 years Dr Chanas has been a member of the global outreach, evaluation and licensing team within Worldwide Business Development Strategy and Innovation of Pfizer Inc. Based in the USA, he has worked on numerous strategic licensing and acquisition projects, the main therapeutic areas having been vaccines, infectious diseases and pain. Prior to joining Pfizer Dr Chanas was head of CNS and anti-viral projects at Astra Pharmaceuticals’ Clinical Research Unit in Edinburgh, where he spent 16 years co-ordinating clinical trials in schizophrenia, depression, stroke and various anti-viral programmes.

Dr John March, chief executive officer of BigDNA said: ‘We are very pleased to welcome Alex and Russell to BigDNA. They have substantial and broad industry experience within the vaccines and wider biopharmaceutical fields, and as such will provide a valuable contribution to strategic and funding developments underway at Big DNA. As members of the Advisory Board, this experience and knowledge will continue to be key factors in our progress and success. I look forward to working with both Alex and Russell as we continue to develop our vaccine delivery platform and vaccine product portfolio. “

ENDS