Vijay B. Samant joined us as President and Chief Executive Officer in November 2000. Mr. Samant has 23 years of diverse U.S. and international sales, marketing, operations, and business development experience with Merck. From 1998 to mid-2000, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Merck Vaccine Division. From 1990 to 1998, he served in the Merck Manufacturing Division as Vice President of Vaccine Operations, Vice President of Business Affairs, and Executive Director of Materials Management. Mr. Samant earned a master's degree in management studies from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He received a master's degree in chemical engineering from Columbia University in 1977 and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay, University Department of Chemical Technology, in 1975. Mr. Samant presently serves as a member of the board of directors of AmpliPhi Biosciences Corporation. Mr. Samant was a member of the Board of Directors for Raptor Pharmaceutical from 2011 to 2014, and was a member of the Board of Directors for BioMarin Pharmaceutical from 2002 to 2004. Mr. Samant was a Director of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation (Rockville, MD) from 2001 to 2010; a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID, Bethesda, MD) from 2003 to 2012; and a member of the Board of Trustees for the International Vaccine Institute (IVI, Seoul, Korea) from 2008 to 2012.

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