Singapore: Dr Joseph Vacca, senior VP, Early Success Sharing Partnerships (ESSP), WuXi PharmaTech, a leading R&D outsourcing company serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, was inducted into the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society with more than 164,000 members.

The induction was held in August 2012 during the 244th ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia. Dr Vacca was honored for his outstanding contributions to the discovery of novel therapeutics, including CRIXIVAN, Isentress, and many compounds in advanced clinical studies.

"Dr Vacca sets the standard of leadership in the discipline of drug discovery," commented Dr Paul Anderson, former Merck chemistry site head, past ACS president and winner of the ACS priestley medal.

"Advancing innovative science to effective therapies is an enormous challenge that requires strong partnership between academia and industry," added Dr Chi-Huey Wong, the 2012 ACS Arthur C Cope Award recipient who is also the Ernest W Hahn professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, and president of Academia Sinica. "Expertise from veterans like Dr Vacca will be vital to speed translation of discoveries into medicines for patients."

Dr Vacca has had a distinguished career in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Prior to working at WuXi, Dr Vacca held positions within the Merck Research Laboratories Chemistry organization as VP, chemistry, at the Kenilworth, New Jersey site and as the global head of structural chemistry.