Fedora Pharmaceuticals (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) has announced the appointment of Thomas Parr (right) to the newly created role of CSO. He was most recently CSO at Targanta Therapeutics. Earlier, he worked in various senior capacities at private biopharma companies including Adaptive Therapeutics, Embiosis Pharmaceuticals and Xenogen.

Says Christopher Micetich, founder and CEO of Fedora, “Tom has worked in the infectious disease space for more than two decades and has broad corporate experience in startup, public biotech and large pharma companies. This industry knowledge will be invaluable as Fedora advances its first β-lactam inhibitor candidates through preclinical development and into clinical trials.”

BioMarin Pharmaceutical (Novato, CA, USA) has announced the promotion of Jeff Ajer from vice president, commercial operations, the Americas, to senior vice president, chief commercial officer. Prior to joining BioMarin, Ajer served as vice president, global transplant operations at Genzyme.

Johnson & Johnson has named the winners of the 2012 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research. In a ceremony and scientific symposium at the New York Academy of Sciences, Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Gary Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School received the award for their collaborative discovery of microRNAs as central regulators of gene expression and development. They will share the $100,000 prize.

Lewis Cantley has been tapped to head the new cancer center at Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York). Cantley is a professor of systems biology at Harvard University and director of the cancer center at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The new cancer center headed by Cantley will add 50,000 square feet of research space to existing cancer facilities at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.

Trophos (Marseille, France) has announced the appointment of Marceline Clementine as CFO. She joined Trophos in 2006 as administration and finance manager.

Igenica (Burlingame, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Mary Haak-Frendscho to the role of CEO and member of the board of directors. She succeeds David Goeddel, who remains as Igenica's chairman. Haak-Frendscho brings over 20 years of industry experience, most recently serving as founding president and CSO of Takeda San Francisco and establishing and overseeing Takeda's Center of Excellence for antibody biologics. Previously, she held positions of increasing responsibility at XOMA, Abgenix and Genentech.

Brett Haumann has been appointed as chief medical officer of Circassia (Oxford, UK). He joins the company from GlaxoSmithKline, where he was vice president and medicines development leader. In addition, Circassia announced the appointment of Stewart Sharpe to the newly created position of vice president, commercial operations. Sharpe brings 25 years of commercial and marketing experience, most recently as head of commercial & business development at Astellas Pharma's subsidiary OSI/Prosidion.

Mucosis (Groningen, The Netherlands) has appointed Thomas Johnston to the position of CEO, succeeding Govert Schouten, who is leaving to found an internet startup. Johnston joined Mucosis as chief business officer in May 2011. Previously, he was vice president of strategy at Novavax.

Yuchun Lee has joined the board of directors of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) as an independent director. Lee is currently vice president and general manager of IBM's Enterprise Marketing Management Group, which was formed following the acquisition of Unica where he was founder and CEO.

TESARO (Waltham, MA, USA) has named Robert Martell as chief medical officer. Martell most recently served as associate professor of medicine and molecular physiology and pharmacology, Tufts University School of Medicine; director, Neely Center for Clinical Cancer Research; and leader of the experimental therapeutics program at Tufts Medical Center Cancer Center.

SpringLeaf Therapeutics (Boston) has named Pieter Muntendam president, CEO and a member of its board of directors. He joins the company from BG Medicine, where he served as president and CEO from 2004 to January of 2012 and as executive vice president and chief medical officer from January through June 2012.

Aastrom Biosciences (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) has named Daniel R. Orlando as chief commercial officer, a newly created position. He comes to Aastrom from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he served for over 13 years in executive leadership positions, most recently as vice president, business development for North and South America.

Verastem (Cambridge, MA, USA) has appointed S. Louise Phanstiel to its board of directors. Phanstiel was most recently the president of specialty products at WellPoint and currently serves on the board of directors of Myriad Genetics and Cedar Sinai Health System.

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (Redwood City, CA, USA) has named Mike A. Royal chief, clinical affairs. Royal comes to AcelRx from Cadence Pharmaceuticals where he most recently served as vice president, clinical development and medical affairs.

Emisphere Technologies (Cedar Knolls, NJ, USA) has named Alan L. Rubino to the position of president, CEO and member of the board of directors. Rubino was most recently president and CEO of New American Therapeutics. He spent 24 years at Hoffmann-La Roche where he rose through the ranks to become a corporate officer and member of the US executive committee.