Optimer Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Pedro Lichtinger (right) as president, CEO and member of the board of directors. He joins Optimer with more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and animal health industries, most recently as president of Pfizer's global primary care business unit, where he oversaw operations in North America, Europe, Korea and Australia. Optimer cofounder Michael N. Chang, who has been president and CEO since the company's inception, will serve as chairman of the board and as a consultant. “Pedro's successful track record in the global pharmaceutical industry will benefit us as we focus on the commercialization of our lead drug candidate, fidaxomicin,” says Chang. “His experience leading R&D and commercial operations will be invaluable.”

Optimer has also announced that Alain B. Schreiber, managing partner at ProQuest Investments, has stepped down from his position as a director. Schreiber has served on the company's board since 2001.

David L. Barker has been elected to the board of directors of BioNanomatrix (Philadelphia). Barker was vice president and CSO at Illumina from 2000 through 2006. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Cell Biosciences, Integrated Diagnostics, IntegenX and NextBio, and is a scientific advisor to Illumina, GenVault, Diagnostics for the Real World, Helixis, BiOptix and DNA Direct.

Silence Therapeutics (London) has announced the promotion of Jorg Kaufmann to the position of vice president of research. Kaufmann, who previously served as senior director, technologies, has been at Silence since 2000.

Immunovaccine (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) has announced the appointment of Paul Kirkconnell to its board of directors. Kirkconnell is founder of PAK Limited, a biopharmaceutical consulting firm, and was most recently managing director of DRI Capital, a $1 billion healthcare investment company. In addition, Denis Ryan has stepped down from Immunovaccine's board after 5 years of service.

Emmanuel le Poul has announced his departure as head of the CNS business unit at Addex Pharmaceuticals (Geneva), where he has served since 2003. Addex CEO Vincent Mutel will resume responsibility for the CNS business unit, a position he held before the promotion of le Poul.

NOXXON Pharma (Berlin) has named Aram Mangasarian as chief business officer and member of the executive committee. Mangasarian brings more than 10 years of biotech and pharma industry business development and strategic planning experience. Previously, he served as vice president of business development at French biotech companies Novexel and ExonHit Therapeutics.

Tarek S. Mansour has been appointed executive vice president, R&D of Xenon Pharmaceuticals (Vancouver, BC, Canada). He was most recently vice president, chemical sciences at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (now Pfizer).

Cobalis (Irvine, CA, USA) has named Martin Marion CEO. He has over 30 years of strategic planning and healthcare marketing experience. He was formerly chief marketing officer for Cobalis from 2003 through 2006 and has served as a consultant to the company for the past year.

Epizyme (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Mikel Moyer vice president of molecular discovery. He joins Epizyme from the Broad Institute, where he was director of medicinal chemistry in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. Before going to the Broad, Moyer held leadership positions in medicinal chemistry groups at Pfizer for nearly 20 years.

Stephen Murray has been appointed chief medical officer of Affectis Pharmaceuticals (Martinsried, Germany). He previously served in the same capacity at Memory Pharmaceuticals before it was sold to Roche in 2009.

Nancy Kreis Newman has joined Vestaron (Kalamazoo, MI, USA) as vice president of finance and CFO. She was previously CFO of A.M. Todd Group.

David R. Parkinson has been appointed to the board of directors of Threshold Pharmaceuticals (Redwood City, CA, USA). He is president and CEO of Nodality and was formerly senior vice president, oncology R&D at Biogen Idec.

Privately held Nuon Therapeutics (San Mateo, CA, USA) has appointed Lee M. Rauch president and CEO. Rauch was most recently acting head of corporate development for Onyx Pharmaceuticals. She also served as chief business officer at Point Biomedical and at Onyx. Previously, she was senior vice president of corporate development at COR Therapeutics.

Novasep (Pompey, France) has announced the appointments of Stephen F. Stefano as president and CEO of its North American business and Patrick A. Glaser as president and CEO of the Novasep Synthesis division. Both men also join Novasep's executive management committee. Stefano was previously senior vice president at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals in charge of business development for North America and new product planning. Glaser was most recently vice president of Dr. Reddy's Laboratories' active pharmaceutical ingredient business and head of strategic contract manufacturing acquisition and integration.

Karen Zaderej has been named CEO of AxoGen (Alachua, FL, USA). She previously served as COO. Outgoing CEO Jamie Grooms will retain the role of chairman of the board for AxoGen.

WuXi PharmaTech (Shanghai) has announced that it has appointed Hao Zhou as CFO. Zhou joined the company in May 2009 as vice president of finance. Before joining WuXi, he worked for 11 years at General Electric, most recently serving as finance director, Greater China, for GE Healthcare Medical Diagnostics and Life Sciences.