Claude Benchimol

Invitrogen (Carlsbad, CA, USA) has appointed Claude Benchimol senior vice president of research and development, a newly created role. Dr. Benchimol spent 15 years at General Electric, most recently as vice president and general manager of global technology for GE's medical systems, information technologies division. Invitrogen also announced the promotion of John Carrino from vice president of R&D to chief scientific officer.

Advanced Stent Tech-nologies (Pleasanton, CA, USA) has ann-ounced the appoint-ments of Jerry Caulder as chairman and CEO and Jay Brumfield as president and chief operating officer. From 1984 to 1998, Dr. Caulder was the president and CEO of Mycogen until it was sold to Dow Chemical. He became chairman and CEO of Myelos Neuroscience in 1998, serving until the company was sold to Biotechnology General Corp. He is the former chairman of the Industrial Biotechnology Association, a predecessor to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and has served on BIO's board of directors. Jay Brumfield was most recently vice president of strategic initiatives at Mississippi Chemical and was a partner in the law firm of Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere and Denegre.

Jerry Caulder

Klaus Dembowsky has joined Ingenium Pharmaceuticals (Munich, Germany) as vice president, drug discovery. Dr. Dembowsky was previously at Bayer, where he served as a manager of the Bayer–Millennium collaboration for drug target discovery.

Perry Karsen has been appointed senior vice president, business development at Human Genome Sciences (Rockville, MD, USA). Mr. Karsen was most recently a general partner at Pequot Ventures, and from 1995 to 2000, served as vice president, strategic business analysis and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Incyte (Palo Alto, CA, USA) has named John A. Keller executive vice president and chief business officer, a new position. Dr. Keller joins Incyte from GlaxoSmithKline, where his most recent position was vice president, business development in the company's worldwide business development group.

CombinatoRx (Boston, MA, USA) has named Jan Lessem chief medical officer and executive vice president of clinical research. He most recently served as vice president of clinical research and chief medical officer at OraPharma, which was recently acquired by Johnson & Johnson.

The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) has announced the appointment of Dennis Meteny as an executive in residence. Mr. Meteny will provide consulting support through the PLSG to early-stage life science companies. He was most recently president and chief operating officer of TissueInformatics, and he remains a member of the board of directors of that company.

Christopher P. Schnittker has joined Cytogen (Princeton, NJ, USA) as vice president and CFO. He joins the company from Genaera (formerly Magainin Pharmaceuticals), where he served in the same position beginning in June 2000.

Inhibitex (Atlanta, GA, USA) has added Louis W. Sullivan and Marc L. Preminger to its board of directors. Dr. Sullivan served as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services from 1989 to 1993, and is the founding dean and president emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Mr. Preminger retired in 2002 as senior vice president and CFO of Cigna Healthcare. In addition to his role as a director of Inhibitex, Mr. Preminger will serve as the chairman of the company's audit committee.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne has been appointed to the newly created position of senior vice president, research drug discovery at Genentech (S. San Francisco, CA, USA). Dr. Tessier-Lavigne joins the company from Stanford University, where he was the Susan B. Ford Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, as well as a professor of biological sciences and a professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

NeurogesX (San Carlos, CA, USA) has promoted Thorsten von Stein from vice president of clinical development to chief medical officer. Dr. von Stein joined the company in 2001 from Roche Pharmaceuticals, where he served as director of medical research.