Helicos BioSciences (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the appointments of Chip Leveille and Mark Solakian to its executive management team. Mr. Leveille has been appointed vice president of sales and marketing and Mr. Solakian has been named vice president and general counsel.

“Chip and Mark are proven leaders bringing years of experience and expertise to Helicos,” says Stanley N. Lapidus, president and CEO of Helicos. “Their addition to the Helicos management team is another significant step as we move toward the commercialization of our technology.”

Mr. Leveille previously served as vice president in three separate capacities—pharmaceutical business, core technologies group and corporate marketing—at Affymetrix. Mr. Solakian brings over 12 years of legal experience to Helicos, serving most recently as vice president and chief corporate counsel for Affymetrix and previously at Goodwin Procter.

Trius Therapeutics (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Kenneth F. Bartizal as chief development officer. Dr. Bartizal was formerly executive director and head, infectious disease research for Merck.

Arthur DeCillis has been named to the position of vice president, clinical research and Anne Champsaur has been named to the position of vice president, drug safety at Exelixis (S. San Francisco, CA, USA). Dr. DeCillis joins Exelixis from Novartis, where he was senior and then executive director of phase 2/3 oncology development. Dr. Champsaur was most recently executive director, drug safety–medical affairs at CV Therapeutics.

Biogen Idec (Cambridge, MA, USA) has elected Marijn E. Dekkers to its board of directors. Dr. Dekkers is president and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Milind Deshpande has been promoted to executive vice president of research at Achillion Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT, USA). Dr. Deshpande previously served as the company's senior vice president, and remains CSO.

Anacor Pharmaceuticals (Palo Alto, CA, USA) has appointed Paulette A. Dillon as its chief business officer, responsible for overseeing commercial and business development. Ms. Dillon most recently served as senior vice president and chief business officer at Avidia. Previously, she was the chief business officer at the Celera Genomics Group.

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Pierre F. Dodion to the newly created position of senior vice president, oncology. Dr. Dodion has over 25 years of experience in the global pharmaceutical industry and academia, most recently as executive director, oncology at Pfizer.

Progen Pharmaceuticals (Brisbane, Australia) has named James Garner vice president of medical and clinical affairs and John Devlin vice president of manufacturing operations. Most recently, Dr. Garner was medical affairs manager at Biogen Idec for the Asia-Pacific region. Dr. Devlin was previously with Organichem (now Albany Molecular Research).

MedImmune (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) has announced that founder Wayne T. Hockmeyer is retiring as president of MedImmune Ventures. Dr. Hockmeyer has also stepped down as the company's chairman upon AstraZeneca's completion of its tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of MedImmune common stock.

Jeremy D. Middleton has been appointed vice president of corporate development at privately held Elusys Therapeutics (Pine Brook, NJ, USA). He has more than 20 years of experience, most recently as vice president of business development at Valera Pharmaceuticals before its merger with Indevus Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Mr. Middletown was previously a vice president at Neose Technologies.

Privately held Zogenix (San Diego) has named David Nassif executive vice president and CFO. Mr. Nassif brings 14 years of industry experience in executive financial management roles, most recently as a consultant to, and CFO and senior vice president of global licensing at Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.

Tillman Pearce has joined privately held KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (Palo Alto, CA, USA) as chief medical officer. Dr. Pearce has 15 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry in both Europe and the US, and comes to KaloBios from PDL BioPharma (Paris), where he held the position of senior director, clinical research. In addition, KaloBios has also announced the appointment of Carmen M. Betancourt, previously senior vice president, regulatory affairs, quality systems and project management at VaxGen, as senior vice president, regulatory affairs, quality and project management.

Idenix Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Ronald C. Renaud, Jr. to the position of CFO. Mr. Renaud previously spent several years as a senior biotech equity analyst for investment banks Bear Stearns, Schwab SoundView and JP Morgan, and was most recently CFO of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (New York). Mark Stier, Keryx's chief accounting officer, who has been with the company since March 2007, will assume responsibilities for all financial functions at Keryx.

Metabasis Therapeutics (San Diego) has announced the election of George F. Schreiner to the company's board of directors. Dr. Schreiner is CEO of Raven Biotechnologies.

LUX Biotechnology (Edinburgh) has announced the appointment of Bryan Smith as COO of the company. He joins LUX after over 12 years experience in operations and operational consulting, most recently at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he served as management consultant.

Nventa Biopharmaceuticals (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Sandford D. Smith to its board of directors, replacing Elizabeth Greetham. Mr. Smith is currently president of the international group and executive vice president at Genzyme. He also serves as vice chairman on the board of Ariad Pharmaceuticals. Before joining Genzyme, he was president and CEO at Repligen.