Berlin.
atugen AG has announced the appointment of Prof Peter Buckel as CEO. This closely follows the strengthening of the board with the appointment of Prof Bernd Wetzel of
Boehringer Ingelheim as non-executive director.
Peter Buckel brings to atugen his extensive experience in both the pharmaceutical industry and the
biotechnology sector. His previous position was as co-founder and CEO of
Xantos Biomedicine AG for four years. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President Molecular
medicine of
Roche Diagnostics and spent over 20 years at Boehringer Mannheim, finally as Head of Global Research and Senior Vice President Biotechnology. He serves on the supervisory and scientific boards of several biopharmaceutical companies, and is a member of expert panels for several national and international medical research programmes.
In addition to his commercial roles, Peter Buckel is a lecturer and professor at the Ludwig-Maximillians-University, Institute of
microbiology and
genetics in Munich. He is also on the advisory board of the Max-Planck Institute for
biochemistry and Neurobiology in Munich.
Commenting on his new position, Peter Buckel said:
"I look forward to working with atugen at this exciting stage in its growth. The siRNA therapeutics programme is set to make strong progress based on the company's know-how and experience and the additional venture capital received to develop it. The recent development of RNA interference-based exploratory, therapeutic approaches promises hope for the treatment of a range of unmet clinical needs. atugen's breakthrough siRNA technologies that have recently been validated in several animal models of disease are well suited to lead the siRNA field into clinical development".
Jeremy Curnock Cook, chairman of atugen's supervisory board, said:
"We are delighted to welcome Prof Buckel to atugen. His management experience in R&D will prove invaluable as atugen moves to the next stage of its siRNA therapeutics development programme whilst still managing its contract research business in
target validation as a valuable source of revenue."