Mark Backer

Dr. Mark Backer has more than 35 years of technical management experience in the development and manufacturing of a wide variety of biopharmaceuticals including antibodies, proteins, viral-based vaccines and cell therapies. He was founding chairman of the vector manufacturing firm Molecular Medicine BioServices (now a division of Millipore Sigma, a Merck KGA company). Dr. Backer’s industry experience began in 1978, when he was the seventh employee of Genentech and initiated its pilot manufacturing operations. He led pioneering efforts in large-scale cell culture technology and ex-vivo expansion and transfection of hematopoietic stem cells. Dr. Backer is owner and manager of the consulting firm Alava Biopharm Partners LLC, supporting development of advanced therapies since 2013. He has served as Sr. VP, Technical Operations with Jennerex with responsibility for all CMC operations. He also served as CEO of Vaxart, creating a novel viral-based oral vaccine platform, VP Technical Development at Protein Design Labs, and served in positions of increasing responsibility at Aviron (now AstraZeneca Vaccines), Systemix, IDEC, and Eli Lilly. Dr. Backer received a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Washington, and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Stanford University.