Geneva, Switzerland — April 16, 2007
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (the “Company”) (OTCBB: AVXL) a biopharmaceutical company, today announced that Jean Jacques Bourguignon, Ph.D., has joined the company’s scientific team and has been appointed a member of the Scientific Committee.
Dr. Bourguignon brings 30 years of solid experience in the field of medicinal chemistry with expertise in drug design and optimization combined with expertise in both organic and physical chemistry. From 1997 until present, he is holding the position of Research Director (CNRS) at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Strasbourg-Illkrich, France. From 1982 until 1997, he pioneered his expertise as senior scientist at the Center of Neurochemistry, Strasbourg, France in the fields of ligands of GHB receptors, cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase inhibitors, muscarinic ligands / acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and ligands of benzodiazepine receptors. From 1981 until 1982 he held the position of Post-Doctoral Fellow at the department of Chemistry, State University of Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. From 1977 until 1981 he served as research associate at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Strasbourg, France. During his career, Dr. Bourguignon has initiated several disciplinary research programs with regards to CNS drugs at the Centre of Neurochemistry, Strasbourg, France. Additionally he has provided original pharmacological tools such as agonists and antagonists acting at specific receptors and has developed new chemical methodologies in the fields of heterocyclic chemistry, peptides, peptidomimetics, and combinatorial chemistry. In 2001, he became the co-founder of a start-up company (Neuro 3d) and in July 2003 he was the organizer of the 2nd French-Swiss meeting on Medicinal Chemistry that took place in Beaune, France.
Dr. Bourguignon holds a PhD in Polymer Physical Chemistry from the University of Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France.
Dr. Bourguignon will be based in Strasbourg and will draw from his extensive medicinal chemistry experience to help optimize the Company’s drug development process.
“Jean Jacques brings to the Company a wealth of expertise in the areas of medicinal chemistry and drug optimization,” said Dr. Kontzalis, Anavex Life Sciences Corp., CEO. “Jean Jacque’s deep technical skill set, applied research interests and industry experience will further strengthen our ability to better optimize our drug development process. His appointment is another key step as we start to grow our world-class consulting team at Anavex Life Sciences Corp.”
“I am looking forward to working with Anavex’s scientific team to further leverage the potential for Company’s unique methodology in optimizing their approaches to drug development” said Dr. Bourguignon.