4February 2005, Welwyn Garden City. Novacta Biosystems  Ltd, a UK based privately held anti-infective biotechnology company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Georg Buchner PhD, MBA as Vice President of Corporate and Business Development. Dr. Buchner will strengthen Novacta’s commercial team as the company enters a new phase of growth and development.

Dr Buchner has until recently been Director, Business Development at Haptogen Ltd. where he was responsible for negotiating in- and out-licensing activity in relation to Haptogen core technology and pipeline. This included having a leading role and being part of the team that negotiated the acquisition of the company by Wyeth research in October 2007.

Before joining Haptogen, he was at Pharmaventures, a specialist advisory and consultancy firm serving the global pharmaceutical industry and a world leader in deals and alliances, where he acted as Business Development Manager and Consultant, opening new geographical areas to the company and executing/leading various valuation and dealmaking related projects.

 

He has an MBA from The Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Kings College, London.

 

Tony Sedgwick, CEO of Novacta, commented:” On behalf of the board, I am pleased to welcome Georg to Novacta.  Georg joins us at a very exciting time. Following the award in January of £3.5M by the Wellcome trust for our  lead programme in c.difficile, Novacta’s goal is to continue to build our product pipeline for other therapeutic indications and exploit Novacta’s immense know how in harnessing biological systems. Georg’s energy and experience will prove invaluable to Novacta new growth phase”.

 

Georg Buchner, commented:” I am thrilled to join the company at such an interesting time. Novacta has a highly experienced scientific team and the rare ability to generate and develop improved small peptide molecules called lantibiotics, using its extensive know how in the microbial biosynthetic pathway engineering. The company has a tremendous potential and l look forward to lending my experience to achieve the company’s vision to become a major player in the anti-infective and anti-inflammation arena”.

 

About Novacta Biosystems

Novacta Biosystems Ltd was founded in 2003 to discover and develop novel pharmaceuticals with a particular focus on infectious disease. The company uses proprietary microbial technologies and enzymes (biotransformation and pathway engineering) to make subtle modifications to complex drugs to optimise their properties such as selectivity, potency and toxicity. Novactas lead programmes are centred around a class of small peptide molecules called lantibiotics, a drug class that until now has been underexploited due to the lack of adequate research tools.

 

 

For further information please contact:

Novacta Biosystems Ltd

Georg Buchner PhD MBA

Vp of Corporate and Business Development

Tel:  +44 (0) 1707356130

Mob: +44 (0) 7989596847

georg.buchner@novactabio.com