ALBANY, N.Y., Sept. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- AMRI (NASDAQ: AMRI) is pleased to announce that it has appointed Christopher Conway as Senior Vice President of Discovery and Development and Global Commercial Sales. Mr. Conway will head up the Company's global Discovery and Development Services (DDS) business, and will retain responsibility for corporate sales and marketing. Chris succeeds Michael A. Luther, Ph.D., MBA, who is leaving AMRI to pursue other opportunities.

"Chris is the ideal choice to direct the next phase of AMRI's DDS growth and development," said William S. Marth, president and CEO, AMRI. "Chris brings deep knowledge of AMRI's discovery and development operations and strong commercial sales and marketing experience to the role. Since joining AMRI in 2008, Chris has consistently demonstrated his commercial and strategic leadership abilities generating value for AMRI's customers while driving top and bottom line growth across all of AMRI's business units in Discovery, Development, API, and Drug Product. We thank Dr. Luther for his efforts in moving the DDS business forward during the last two years and wish him the best in his future endeavors."

Mr. Conway joined AMRI in 2008 as a Business Development Manager with AMRI's U.S. discovery team. He was promoted to Senior Director of the North America discovery market in 2010 and then to Vice President of Business Development in 2012 leading an international team of business development managers in North America and Europe. Chris was promoted to Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing in 2014. Before joining AMRI, Mr. Conway held sales and leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Johnson and Johnson and completed J&J's Commercial Leadership Development Program.

In a related announcement, AMRI welcomes Rory Curtis, Ph.D., who joins AMRI as Vice President of Discovery Biology and Pharmacology. Dr. Curtis, who joins AMRI from Cubist Pharmaceuticals, will also serve as the site head with responsibility for scientific operations at AMRI's Buffalo, N.Y. location.

Dr. Curtis was most recently Senior Director of Human Diseases in Discovery at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, where he developed Cubist's antibacterial drug discovery into new disease areas such as pain, inflammation and gastro-intestinal disease. Prior to that, he was Senior Director of Research at Elixir Pharmaceuticals, where he built a drug discovery platform developing small molecules to target diseases of aging. Prior to that, Dr. Curtis held positions of increasing responsibility at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, focused on the discovery of novel genes as drug targets and developing high-throughput screens. Dr. Curtis began his career at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals developing neurotrophic factors for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Curtis earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (University of London, UK). He also earned his B.Sc. in Zoology from Imperial College.

About AMRI
Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) is a global contract research and manufacturing organization that has been working with the Life Sciences industry to improve patient outcomes and the quality of life for more than two decades. With locations in North America, Europe and Asia, our key business segments include Discovery and Development Solutions (DDS), Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), and Drug Product Manufacturing (DPM). Our DDS segment provides comprehensive services from hit identification to IND, including expertise with diverse chemistry, library design and synthesis, in vitro biology and pharmacology, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, as well as natural products. API supports the chemical development and cGMP manufacture of complex API, including potent, controlled substances, biologics, peptides, steroids, hormones, cytotoxic compounds and sterile API. DPM supports development through commercial scale production of complex liquid-filled and lyophilized parenterals, sterile suspensions and ophthalmic formulations. For more information about AMRI, please visit our website at www.amriglobal.com or follow us on Twitter (@amriglobal).

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SOURCE AMRI