Oct. 26, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Inovio Biomedical Corporation (NYSE Amex: INO), a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced that its board of directors elected David J. Williams, former chairman and CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine business of Sanofi-Aventis Group, and Keith H. Wells, a senior member of the Biologics Consulting Group and former director of vaccine development for The Salk Institute, to the board.

David J. Williams retired in 2008 as chairman & CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines business of the Sanofi-Aventis Group. His leadership moved the company from a niche vaccine business to the global leader in vaccine development, production and sales, with revenues of more than $6 billion in 2007. Under his guidance, more than a billion doses of lifesaving vaccines were administered to more than 500 million people around the world each year, representing more than 25% of the global vaccine market. During his tenure the company licensed more than 30 new vaccines and launched hundreds of business development deals.

For the past 20 years, Keith H. Wells, a senior member of Biologics Consulting Group, has overseen all facets of vaccine development including process development and validation, manufacturing operations, and U.S. and European regulatory strategy for several international companies. He has directed vaccine development at Acambis, PLC, Oravax, and The Salk Institute, and provided R&D support to vaccine manufacturing at Merck & Co. He has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse.

Dr. J. Joseph Kim, president & CEO of Inovio, said: “These two business leaders each have multiple decades of experience leading and executing the development and commercialization of cutting-edge vaccine technology and important new vaccines. Their expertise will be invaluable to Inovio as we advance a new generation of vaccines - DNA vaccines delivered using the potency-enhancing capabilities of electroporation - that are displaying superior results and potential to not only prevent but treat challenging infectious diseases and cancers.”

Inovio Biomedical’s other board members are Avtar Dhillon, M.D., Inovio’s executive chairman; Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s president & CEO; Simon Benito, former senior vice president of Merck’s vaccine division; Morton Collins, general partner of Battelle Ventures; and Ng Tee Khiang, co-founder of Evia Capital Partners and Evia Growth Opportunities.