Tony Ford-Hutchinson

Dr. Ford-Hutchinson was either head of Vaccine R&D at Merck or responsible for Vaccine Research during which time four important vaccines were discovered and developed: Gardasil®, Zostavax®, Proquad® and Rotateq®. His career at Merck started at Merck Frosst Canada where he spent 17 years moving from Director of Pharmacology to SVP and Site Head. During his time in Canada, the laboratories there developed multiple approved products, including Singulair®, for the treatment of adult and pediatric asthma and allergic rhinitis, and selective COX-2 inhibitors for the treatment of osteoarthritis and pain, becoming the most productive discovery unit within Merck. In 1998, Dr. Hutchinson moved to Pennsylvania to head the basic research efforts worldwide. As an EVP, he became responsible for franchise strategies in multiple disease areas, including Vaccines and Infectious Diseases. He also served as the Chairman of the Board, Hilleman Laboratories, a JV between Merck and the Wellcome Trust with vaccine development laboratories in New Delhi, India. After 32 years at Merck, he retired in 2012 and has subsequently served on several biotech boards and SABs, including Okairos AG, a vaccine platform company based around viral vectors (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Ligocyte Pharmaceuticals, a company developing a vaccine against norovirus infection (acquired by Takeda Pharmaceuticals), Novira Pharmaceuticals, a small molecule start-up developing anti-viral capsid inhibitors (acquired by Johnson & Johnson) and is currently an SAB member of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, a vaccine platform company based around in vivo DNA electroporation and Hookipa AG, a vaccine company based around a novel viral expression system. He is also a member of the Translational Fund Committee at the Wellcome Trust, and a Board Member of SAGE Bionetworks, a not for profit organization aiming to improve the understanding and treatment of human disease through data-driven predictive modeling. Dr. Hutchinson obtained his BSc, MSc, and PhD from the Universities of Birmingham, Warwick, and London.