Privately held XTuit Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Deborah Dunsire (right) as president, CEO and a member of the board of directors. Dunsire brings over 20 years of strategic, clinical, commercial and management experience in the biotech and pharma industry, formerly serving as president and CEO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which became Takeda Oncology, and prior to that leading Novartis's North American oncology business for more than ten years.

“I am delighted to join XTuit and its esteemed scientific founders, experienced investors, and the outstanding scientific team at the company. We are at an exciting stage with strong momentum to rapidly advance the company's novel therapies which target master regulators in the microenvironment to address multiple disease pathways,” said Dunsire. “I believe XTuit has a rare opportunity to leverage its leadership in this field to develop novel therapies with the potential to reverse fibrosis and transform outcomes in cancer.”

ImaginAb (Los Angeles) has named Martyn Coombs (left) as CEO. Coombs most recently served as president of Jubilant DraxImage and was CEO of Asterand; he also held senior leadership roles at Amersham (now GE Healthcare) and Nihon Medi-Physics.

In conjunction with the completion of a $38-million series A financing, Arrakis Therapeutics (Waltham, MA, USA) has named Michael Gilman as chairman and CEO. Gilman is the former founding CEO of Padlock Therapeutics and Stromedix. He also held the roles of senior vice president at Biogen and executive vice president and CSO at Ariad Pharmaceuticals.

Ludwig N. Hantson, most recently president and CEO of Baxalta, has been appointed CEO and a member of the board of directors of Alexion Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT, USA). He succeeds interim CEO David R. Brennan who will remain on the board of directors.

Human Longevity (San Diego) has announced today that David Heckerman has joined the company as chief data scientist. Heckerman is a 25-year veteran of Microsoft who led the company's first research team to focus on machine learning, producing tools such as the first content-based spam filter. He later led the first research team to focus on computational biology. He most recently led the Microsoft Genomics team, advancing research in genomics and computational biology and supporting Microsoft cloud services for genomics.

Revolution Medicines (Redwood City, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Stephen (Steve) Kelsey (right) as president of research and development. Kelsey most recently served as president of Onkaido Therapeutics, a Moderna Venture focused on oncology mRNA therapeutics. Prior to Onkaido, he served in senior positions at Medivation and Geron.

Preston Klassen has been appointed executive vice president, R&D and chief medical officer of Arena Pharmaceuticals (San Diego). He has over 20 years of experience in biopharma product development, most recently serving as chief medical officer of Laboratoris Sanifit. Previously, he was executive vice president, head of global development at Orexigen Therapeutics.

Therachon (Basel, Switzerland) has named Maarten Kraan (right) as chief medical officer. He was most recently senior vice president, head of innovative medicines respiratory and inflammation at AstraZeneca. Prior to that, Kraan was vice president, head of clinical research and experimental development inflammation at Hoffman–La Roche and vice president, immunosciences at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Hookipa Biotech (Vienna) has announced the appointment of Igor Matushansky as global head, R&D. Matushansky joins the company from Daiichi Sankyo, where he was the global head of translational development for oncology. Prior to that, he was at Novartis where he was global head for clinical and scientific development at its gene and cell therapy unit as well as a global clinical program lead within Novartis' oncology translational medicine unit.

Celsee Diagnostics (Plymouth, MI, USA) has appointed John L. “Kip” Miller to its board of directors. Miller is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur who previously served as president of genetic systems at Life Technologies and as senior vice president at Invitrogen.

Specialty pharma company Tris Pharma (Monmouth Junction, NJ, USA) has appointed Paul Rogers as chief commercial officer. He brings more than 25 years of industry experience in clinical research and commercial roles, and has led commercialization of successful brands such as Nexium, Crestor, Vyvanse and most recently Linzess.

Contract genomics organization WuXi NextCODE (Shanghai, Cambridge, MA, USA and Reykjavik, Iceland) has promoted COO Hannes Smarason to CEO, and WuXi AppTec senior vice presidents John Long and Alex Fowkes have been named CFO and COO, respectively. Smarason co-founded NextCODE Health in 2013 as a spinout from deCODE Genetics, and oversaw its acquisition by WuXi AppTec in 2015 and its merger with the WuXi Genome Center to create WuXi NextCODE. Long has served as WuXi AppTec's senior vice president of finance since 2013, and Fowkes joined WuXi AppTec in 2012, most recently serving as senior vice president of commercial operations.