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WATERTOWN, Mass., September 4, 2008 — Selecta Biosciences, Inc., a Boston-based biopharmaceutical company, announced today that it has appointed Lloyd Johnston, Ph.D., to the position of Vice President, Pharmaceutical Research and Development. Dr. Johnston brings to Selecta Biosciences more than a decade of executive experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. He joins the Company from his most recent position as Vice President, Operations at Alkermes, Inc.
"Lloyd's impressive track record of building and managing successful drug development programs around breakthrough polymeric drug delivery technologies will be invaluable as we move forward with our initial applications for Selecta's proprietary targeted immune modulation platform technology," said Robert Bratzler, Executive Chairman of Selecta Biosciences. "Lloyd's leadership will be critical in shaping the drug development strategy to focus internal product development programs and establish partnerships to expand the commercial use of targeted immunomodulatory nanoparticles."
Dr. Johnston brings significant expertise in the discovery, development and scale-up of drugs based on novel polymer-based delivery systems. Dr. Johnston was Vice President of Operations for Alkermes, having responsibilities for process development, scale-up, and clinical manufacturing for pulmonary and sustained release injectable products as well as leadership of Alkermes' 90,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Dr. Johnston was also a project leader and member of Steering Committees for numerous products through various stages of development from Phase 1 through registration. Dr. Johnston was one of the founding employees of Advanced Inhalation Research (AIR) Inc., a private company acquired by Alkermes in 1999. Prior to joining AIR, he was a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Queen's University in Canada, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Selecta Biosciences, Inc. is a venture backed biopharmaceutical company in the Boston area developing the first generation of nanoparticle immunomodulatory drugs for the treatment and prevention of human diseases. Selecta's proprietary product platform technology combines recent advances in immunobiology with cutting-edge nanotechnology to develop targeted immunomodulatory nanoparticles. Selecta's targeted nanoparticles are rationally designed to deliver bioactive molecules to specific immune cells in the body.
Selecta was founded based on complimentary research by three academic pioneers. The advanced particle technology of Professors Robert Langer (MIT) and Omid Farokhzad (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School), two leaders in the fields of drug delivery and targeted nanotechnology, have been combined with the insights into the workings of the immune system made by Professor Ulrich von Andrian (Harvard Medical School), a leader in the field of immunology, to enable Selecta’s broad and powerful product platform. Selecta is backed by leading venture capital firms Polaris Venture Partners and Flagship Ventures.