Alkeus Pharmaceuticals of Boston, Mass., has appointed Joshua Boger, Ph.D., as executive chairman of the company's board of directors. 

Bringing over 30 years of experience in drug discovery, development and commercialization, Boger founded Vertex Pharmaceuticals in 1989, and before that worked for over a decade at Merck.

As CEO of Vertex, he led the company's efforts to develop science-based, transformative medicines, which have since turned the company into a successful global business. Besides leading the way in the use of structure-based rational drug design as the basis for drug discovery, Boger pioneered alliances between pharma companies and disease-focused foundations by partnering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to discover and develop new cystic fibrosis medicines. This resulted early 2012 in the marketing approval of Vertex’s first cystic fibrosis medicine, one of the first oral drugs to address the root cause of a genetic condition.

Beyond his role as executive chairman of Alkeus, Boger will continue to serve on the board of Vertex, as well as chair of the board of fellows of the Harvard Medical School, chair of the board of trustees at Wesleyan University, chair of NEHI (the Network for Healthcare Innovation, Cambridge), board member of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, the Hastings Center and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.