Life sciences investment company Clal Biotechnology Industries (CBI, Tel Aviv and Boston) has appointed Julian Adams (right) CSO and president. In addition, Adams has been elected to positions in two of CBI's portfolio companies: executive chairman of Vedantra Pharmaceuticals and chairman of Gamida Cell. He brings over 30 years of experience in drug discovery and development, most recently serving as president of R&D at Infinity Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he was senior vice president of drug discovery and development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

“Julian brings an unparalleled depth of knowledge in pharmaceutical R&D that will enhance CBI's capabilities as we continue to grow,” said Avi Fischer, chairman of CBI. “His vast experience in drug development is a huge asset, and we are confident that Julian will play a major role in CBI's success in the years to come.”

Bradford J. Crutchfield has been appointed chief commercial officer of 10× Genomics (Pleasanton, CA, USA). He brings more than 30 years of experience in commercial sales and marketing, having most recently served as Qiagen's senior vice president, life sciences business area. Previously, he served as vice president and general manager, Europe, Middle East & Africa, for Illumina.

Arena Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) has appointed Jayson Dallas, CEO and executive vice president of Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals; Oliver Fetzer, CEO of Synthetic Genomics; and Garry A. Neil, CSO of Aevi Genomic Medicine, to the company's board of directors. In addition, current directors Harry F. Hixson, Jr. and Donald D. Belcher have announced their retirement from the board.

Thirty-year biopharma industry veteran George Davis has joined the board of directors of Perthera (McLean, VA, USA). He currently serves as CEO of Gemstone Biotherapeutics and is a partner in Gamma 3 Investments.

Larn Hwang has been appointed CSO and Mihir Munsif as COO of Marina Biotech (City of Industry, CA, USA). Hwang was most recently CEO of Oncotelic and was CSO of Autotelic. She was a founder of IgDraSol, which merged with Sorrento Therapeutics in 2013, and where she served as vice president of regulatory and clinical operations. Munsif has served as senior vice president at Autotelic since November 2016, as senior vice president of portfolio management of LipoMedics since June 2016 and as senior vice president of portfolio management of Oncotelic since October 2015.

Accel-Rx (Vancouver), Canada's national health sciences accelerator, has announced the appointment of David J. Main as chairman of its board. Main is currently chairman, president and CEO of Aquinox, and recently completed a three-year term as chairman of BIOTECanada. He has over 25 years of experience in the health sciences industry, previously serving as president and CEO of INEX Pharmaceuticals and vice president at QLT.

Brian Malone has been appointed senior vice president, finance and A. Stewart Campbell has been named vice president, early-stage development of Axial Biotherapeutics (Boston and Pasadena, CA, USA). Malone has held senior finance and operations roles including CFO positions at Longwood Fund, Kellport Capital Management and Old Mutual Asset Management. Campbell brings more than 22 years of drug discovery and development expertise to Axial, and has held leadership roles at biopharma and chemical manufacturing companies including Corden Pharma, Surface Logix and Insmed.

Abpro (Woburn, MA, USA) has named Adam Mostafa as CFO. Mostafa was previously managing director in the healthcare investment banking group at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Minoryx Therapeutics (Mataró, Spain) has announced the appointment of Claude Nicaise to its board of directors. Nicaise has over 30 years of experience in developing worldwide regulatory strategy in the pharma and biotech industries. He is currently a board member at Sarepta Therapeutics and was previously senior vice president of strategic development and global regulatory affairs at Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

Rare genetic disease company Therachon (Basel, Switzerland) has named Hans Schikan to its board of directors, Richard Porter as COO and Jeffrey Stavenhagen as vice president of biology. Schikan currently serves as chairman at Asceneuron, Complix, and InteRNA and is a non-executive director at several other companies. He was previously CEO of Prosensa. Porter was most recently global head of operations management for neuroscience ophthalmology and rare diseases at Roche. Stavenhagen was a senior director at Lundbeck and led their global biologics program to treat CNS diseases. Prior to that, he served as director, molecular immunology at Amplimmune.

Kymab (Cambridge, UK) has named Arndt Schottelius (right) its first executive vice president R&D, effective in May. He joins the company from MorphoSys, where he served as chief development officer. Prior to his role at MorphoSys, Schottelius was a medical director, immunology development at Genentech.

Illumina (San Diego) has announced the appointment of John W. Thompson (right) to the company's board of directors effective May 3. Thompson has served as CEO at Symantec and Virtual Instruments, and has 28 years of prior leadership experience at IBM, where he held senior management roles. He is chairman of the board of Microsoft and has served on the corporate boards of Symantec, NIPSCO, Fortune Brands, Seagate Technologies and United Parcel Service.