AMRI Promotes Takeshi Yura, Ph.D., to Vice President of Discovery and Development Services, Asia

ALBANY, N.Y., Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- AMRI announced today that it has promoted Takeshi Yura, Ph.D., to Vice President of Discovery and Development Services, Asia. Dr. Yura will report directly to Thomas E. D'Ambra, Ph.D., Chairman, President and CEO.

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Dr. Yura joined AMRI in January 2011 and most recently served as Senior Director of Drug Discovery services in Singapore, leading the chemistry and biology teams of AMRI's flagship Asian integrated drug discovery operations. Effective immediately, Dr. Yura has also assumed leadership of AMRI's Discovery and Development efforts at AMRI's Hyderabad, India site.

Dr. D'Ambra said, "AMRI's Singapore and Hyderabad operations are important and growing businesses for AMRI and conduct projects for customers located all over the world. With the ongoing evolution of outsourcing and a growing focus from customers on strategic relationships, we believe that Dr. Yura's leadership, his focus on excellence in scientific research and his dedication to quality and the integrity of our customers' intellectual property will provide integration under one leadership of what we are referring to as 'AMRI Asia.' This new alignment will enable seamless transfer and execution of projects within and between sites to consistent high standards and provide more effective project management and development of key talent."

Dr. D'Ambra added, "We have a growing international customer base in Singapore that has been looking to utilize the synergies of that location with our custom library, discovery chemistry, development, analytical and kilo scale capabilities at Hyderabad. When you also consider our large scale manufacturing capabilities in Aurangabad, AMRI Asia is now equipped to seamlessly serve our customers from early discovery to large scale production in this newest application of our SMARTSOURCING™ strategy."

Dr. Yura brings to this role more than 22 years of scientific and leadership experience in discovery research, project management and business development. Before joining AMRI, he was a director at Dishman Japan Ltd., responsible for sales and all business development activities for contract manufacturing services. Before that, he served as discovery chemistry research head at Pfizer Japan, dedicated primarily to the areas of pain and gastrointestinal drug discovery. Prior to Pfizer, he served as section head, medicinal chemistry at Bayer Yakuhin in Japan focused on urology and asthma. He has held additional scientific roles at both Ciba Geigy Japan and Tanabe Seiyaku. Dr. Yura obtained a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Tokyo, working with Professor Teruaki Mukaiyama until his retirement and with Professor Koichi Narasaka. He also holds an M.B.A. from the Temple University Tokyo.

About AMRI
Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (AMRI) is a global contract research and manufacturing organization offering customers fully integrated drug discovery, development and manufacturing services. For over 21 years, AMRI has demonstrated its adaptability as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have undergone tremendous change in response to multiple challenges. This experience, a track record of success and locations in the United States, Europe and Asia now provides our customers with SMARTSOURCING™, a full range of value-added opportunities providing customers informed decision-making, enhanced efficiency and more successful outcomes at all stages of the pipeline. AMRI has also successfully partnered R&D programs and is actively seeking to out-license its remaining programs for further development. For more information about AMRI, please visit our website at www.amriglobal.com or follow us on Twitter (@amriglobal).

About Singapore Research Centre, Pte. Ltd.
In Singapore, AMRI provides integrated chemistry and biology services to support drug discovery programs. The Singapore site specializes in all medicinal chemistry services, such as hit-to-lead and lead optimization services, and also serves as AMRI's global biology center. In the area of biology/in vitro pharmacology, the Centre provides target validation; assay development; HTS; rapid production of SAR quality data; and in vitro ADMET support, including CYP inhibition, metabolic stability (liver microsome assays), and aqueous solubility. As a signatory to the World Patent Treaty, Singapore provides an environment that stringently protects intellectual property, enabling our scientists to conduct proprietary and cutting-edge research on behalf of our customers.

About AMRI India Operations
In India, AMRI offers cost-competitive chemical synthesis and kilo lab work, as well as a reliable, large-scale manufacturing source for starting materials and intermediates. AMRI established its presence in India in 2007. Since that time, capabilities have been built in the areas of chemical synthesis and manufacturing, keeping AMRI's core values of Safety, Quality and Customer Satisfaction and Service at the forefront of the Company's business objectives. Today, AMRI in India has significant capabilities and capacity across the Custom Research and Manufacturing Services (CRAMS) space. AMRI's Global Project Management Team has access to the extensive experience and capabilities of all of the Company's global locations, and can tap into the collective problem solving and brainpower of industry experienced managers as needed. Numerous projects are in progress or have been completed using this integrated model, and AMRI's operations in Hyderabad and Aurangabad, India, are especially well-suited to be a centerpiece of a global project team.

SOURCE AMRI