Board of Directors
We have three classes of directors serving staggered three-year terms. Each class currently consists of two directors. Our Board is presently composed of five directors. One Class II director seat is vacant. That seat will remain vacant until our Nominating/Governance Committee identifies a suitable candidate for the seat and such candidate is appointed or elected to the Board of Directors.
Two Class I directors were elected at the 2008 Annual Meeting to serve until our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors shall have been elected and qualified or until such directors' earlier resignation, removal from office, death or incapacity. The terms of the Class II and Class III directors expire at our 2009 and 2010 Annual Meetings of Stockholders, respectively.
Class I
Vijay B. Samant has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Vical since he joined us in November 2000. Previously, he held various positions at Merck & Co., Inc. (“Merck”) from 1977 to 2000. From 1998 to 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. From 1977 to 1990, Mr. Samant held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in manufacturing, process engineering, production planning and control, business development and loss prevention in several Merck operating divisions. Mr. Samant holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay, India, an M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Columbia University and an M.B.A. degree from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Samant is a director of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, a not-for-profit organization working to develop tuberculosis vaccines, serves on the Project Management Subcommittee of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (“IAVI”) and is on the Board of Trustees of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Robert C. Merton, Ph.D., has been a professor at the Harvard Business School since 1988, and is currently the John and Natty McArthur University Professor. Prior to his positions at Harvard, he served on the finance faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management from 1970 until 1988. Dr. Merton received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives. Dr. Merton is past President of the American Finance Association, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a director of the funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors, one of our stockholders. Dr. Merton is a director and Chairman, Daedalus Software, Inc., a bio-informatics company with transplant and research bio-bank software applications, a director of MF Risk, Inc., a financial risk corporation, and a director of Community First Financial Group and Peninsula Banking Group. He serves on advisory boards of several companies and institutions. Some of Dr. Merton’s other financial and accounting experience includes serving as a Senior Advisor to and Managing Director of JP Morgan Chase & Co. from 1999 to 2001, and a co-founder and principal of Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. He has received numerous academic awards and has lectured widely. Dr. Merton holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, an M.S. degree in applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, Dr. Merton holds numerous honorary degrees.
Class II
R. Gordon Douglas, M.D., is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Douglas retired in April 1999 from Merck, where he had been President of the Merck Vaccine Division since 1991 and a member of the Merck Management Committee. Prior to joining Merck in 1989, Dr. Douglas was a physician and academician. His teaching and administrative affiliations included Baylor College of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine, and Cornell University Medical College. His medical practice included affiliations with The New York Hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University Hospital and North Shore University Hospital. Dr. Douglas has served as a visiting professor at a number of medical schools and as a consultant to several pharmaceutical and biomedical companies. He also served on the board of directors of the IAVI and is currently a member of the board of directors of Advancis Pharmaceutical Corporation, EluSys Therapeutics, Inc., IOMAI Corporation and VaxInnate Corporation, all biotechnology or biopharmaceutical companies. In addition, Dr. Douglas is the Chairman of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and was formerly Director of Strategic Planning at the National Institutes of Health, Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and an M.D. degree from Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Douglas received his medical staff training at The New York Hospital and Johns Hopkins Hospital and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the Association of American Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and numerous other organizations.
Class III
Robert H. Campbell held various positions with Sunoco, Inc., a publicly traded petroleum refiner and chemicals manufacturer, for 40 years through June 2000, including President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. In 1999, while Mr. Campbell was Chairman of Sunoco, the company won the “Board Excellence Award” from Spencer Stuart and the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2001, Mr. Campbell was named one of “Corporate America’s Outstanding Directors” by the editors of “Corporate Alert.” In addition, he was invited to testify as an expert on corporate governance issues in May 2002, before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the hearings on Enron Corp. and Arthur Andersen LLP. Mr. Campbell serves as a member of the board of directors of CIGNA Corporation, an employee benefits company and The Pew Charitable Trusts, a charitable foundation. Mr. Campbell also serves as a director of the Robert H. Campbell and Nancy W. Campbell Foundation, a vehicle to contribute to charitable causes. Mr. Campbell received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with honors from Princeton University, a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in management through the Sloan Fellows program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Gary A. Lyons held various positions with Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, for 15 years through January 2008, including President and Chief Executive Officer. From 1983 to 1993, Mr. Lyons held various executive positions at Genentech, Inc., a biotechnology company, including Vice President of Business Development, Vice President of Sales, and Director of Sales and Marketing. From 1973 to 1983, Mr. Lyons worked with American Critical Care, a division of American Hospital Supply Corporation, serving as Director of Sales from 1980 to 1983. He is also a director of Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. and Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., publicly held biotechnology companies. Mr. Lyons holds a bachelor’s degree in marine biology from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. degree from Northwestern University, JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management.