Clinical-stage drug discovery, development and manufacturing company Sutro Biopharma Inc (NASDAQ: STRO) disclosed on Wednesday that James P Panek has been appointed to its board of directors.

With over 40 years of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, Panek has worked as an independent consultant since 2011.

Previously, Panek held leadership positions at VaxGen, from 2002 to 2010. While at VaxGen, Panek served as co-ceo and chairman of its international joint venture, Celltrion. He was appointed chief executive officer at VaxGen in 2007.

Panek also held several leadership positions during an 18-year tenure at Genentech.

Sutro Biopharma is focused on the application of precise protein engineering and rational design to create next-generation oncology therapeutics. To date, Sutro has designed cytokine-based immuno-oncology therapies, ADCs, vaccines and bispecific antibodies primarily directed at clinically-validated targets for which the current standard of care is suboptimal.