Anacor Pharmaceuticals appoints Wendell Wierenga to the Board of Directors

– USA, CA – Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAC) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Wendell Wierenga, Ph.D. to serve as a Class III director until the Company’s 2016 annual meeting of shareholders. Anacor also announced that Paul Klingenstein has resigned from the Board.

“Anacor recently achieved a significant milestone with FDA’s approval of KERYDINTM and I look forward to contributing to the continued success of the company.”

Dr. Wierenga is a seasoned pharmaceutical executive with broad experience in all aspects of research, drug discovery and drug development. From June 2011 until February 2014, Dr. Wierenga served as Executive Vice President, Research and Development of Santarus, Inc., a public biopharmaceutical company that was acquired by Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. in January 2014. From 2007 until May 2011, he served as Executive Vice President, Research and Development of Ambit Biosciences Corporation. From 2003 to 2007, Dr. Wierenga served as Executive Vice President, Research and Development of Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Wierenga served as Chief Executive Officer of Syrrx, Inc. From 1990 to 2000, Dr. Wierenga was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Pharmaceutical Sciences, Technologies and Development at Parke-Davis, a division of Warner Lambert Co. Prior to Parke-Davis, Dr. Wierenga worked at Upjohn Co. and its successor companies for 16 years in various positions, most recently as executive director of discovery research. Dr. Wierenga received a B.S. from Hope College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University. In addition, Dr. Wierenga is a member of the boards of directors of XenoPort, Inc., Cytokinetics, Incorporated, Ocera Therapeutics, Inc., Apricus Biosciences, Inc. and Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

“The other members of the Board and I thank Paul for the many contributions he has made to the Company since joining the Board in 2002, and wish him well in his future endeavors,” said Paul Berns, Anacor’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “At the same time, we are pleased to welcome Wendell as a new independent director. Wendell is a highly respected pharmaceutical executive with broad managerial, board and strategic leadership experience and an extensive background in research and drug development. We look forward to working with Wendell and benefiting from his expertise.”

“I am very pleased to become a member of the Anacor Board,” said Wendell Wierenga. “Anacor recently achieved a significant milestone with FDA’s approval of KERYDINTM and I look forward to contributing to the continued success of the company.”

About Anacor Pharmaceuticals

Anacor is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel small-molecule therapeutics derived from its boron chemistry platform. Anacor’s first approved drug, KERYDINTM (tavaborole) topical solution, 5%, is an oxaborole antifungal approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2014 for the topical treatment of onychomycosis of the toenails. In July 2014, Anacor entered into an exclusive agreement with Sandoz Inc., a Novartis company, pursuant to which Sandoz will distribute and commercialize KERYDIN in the United States. Anacor’s lead product candidate is AN2728, an investigational anti-inflammatory PDE-4 inhibitor in development for the potential treatment of mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. Beyond KERYDIN and AN2728, Anacor has discovered, synthesized and is developing six molecules. These include three wholly-owned investigational product candidates. AN2718 is an investigational topical antifungal, AN2898 is a backup compound to AN2728 and AN3365 is an investigational antibiotic for the potential treatment of infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria. Anacor has also discovered three other investigational compounds that it has out-licensed for further development. The first compound is licensed to Eli Lilly and Company for the potential treatment of an animal health indication. The second compound, AN5568, is licensed to Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative for the potential treatment of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT, or sleeping sickness) and the third compound is licensed to GlaxoSmithKline LLC for development in tuberculosis. Anacor also has a pipeline of other internally discovered topical and systemic boron-based compounds in earlier stages of research and pre-clinical development

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