Privately held NKT Therapeutics (Waltham, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Barbara Finck (below, right) to the position of chief medical officer. She was most recently senior vice president of R&D and chief medical officer at Osprey Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she served as the vice president of clinical development at Eos Biotechnology and then at Protein Design Labs following its acquisition of Eos.

“We are delighted to add someone with Barbara's background and depth of experience,” says Robert Mashal, CEO of NKT Therapeutics. “This important addition to the NKT Therapeutics senior management team further advances our goal of building a pipeline of first-in-class, NKT, cell-directed therapeutics to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, cancer, infectious diseases and dermatitis.”

Agile Therapeutics (Princeton, NJ, USA) has named Al Altomari, a former senior manager at Johnson & Johnson who has been serving as Agile's chairman, as president and CEO, succeeding Thomas Rossi. Rossi, who joined Agile as president and CEO in 2004, will serve as a scientific advisor to the company. Altomari was most recently CEO of Barrier Therapeutics.

Paul R. Billings (right) has been named chief medical officer of Life Technologies (Carlsbad, CA, USA), a newly created position. Billings brings extensive expertise and clinical experience, most recently serving as director and CSO of the Genomic Medicine Institute at El Camino Hospital. He currently serves as a member of the US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society, where he helps shape policy in the field of genomic medicine, and has been a founder or CEO of companies involved in genetic and diagnostic medicine, including GeneSage, Omicia and CELLective Dx.

Nick Glover has been named CEO and a director of YM BioSciences (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada). David Allan has relinquished his post as CEO but will continue to serve as chairman of the company. Glover joined YM in June 2010 as president and COO.

SpectraScience (San Diego) has announced that Jim Hitchin has resigned his position as chairman of the board but will remain as CEO of the company. The board has elected Mark McWilliams to assume the duties of chairman. McWilliams, CEO of Medipacs, has served as a SpectraScience director since 2004.

Pacgen Biopharmaceuticals (Vancouver) has announced the election of John Hsuan to its board of directors. Hsuan has incubated and co-founded more than 20 public companies and currently serves as chairman of NCTU Venture Capital, Maxima Capital Management and Faraday Technology. He also currently serves as the emeritus vice chairman of United Microelectronic, a leading global semiconductor company.

Pharming Group (Leiden, The Netherlands) has announced the appointment of Karl Keegan as CFO. Keegan formerly served in the same capacity at Minster Pharmaceuticals and has more than 15 years of industry experience, including as a biotech analyst at several investment banks.

Vaccinogen (Frederick, MD, USA) has appointed Michael L. Kranda as president and CEO. He brings more than 20 years of experience developing biotech platforms, products and companies and serves on the board of directors of several companies, including PTC Therapeutics. Kranda was most recently CEO, president and director of Anesiva. Prior to joining Anesiva, Kranda was managing director of Vulcan Capital.

Genetic analysis software maker Geospiza (Seattle) has announced the appointment of Bruce Montgomery to its board of directors. Montgomery has over two decades of experience in pharma and biotech management, most recently serving as senior vice president of respiratory therapeutics at Gilead Sciences. Previously, he had founded and served as CEO of Corus Pharmaceuticals until its sale to Gilead.

Advaxis (North Brunswick, NJ, USA) has named Robert Petit to the newly created position of vice president of clinical operations and medical affairs. He joins Advaxis from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he served as the US medical strategy lead for the ipilimumab program, director of medical strategy for new oncology products and director of global clinical research.

Alexander Polinsky has been named to the board of directors of AtheroNova (Irvine, CA, USA) He is managing partner of Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund. He also co-founded Alanex and served as its CSO until it was acquired by Agouron Pharmaceuticals in 1997. After Agouron's acquisition by Pfizer, Polinsky served in several capacities, including vice president, head of discovery technologies and CEO of The Pfizer Incubator.

Privately held NGM Biopharmaceuticals (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has named William J. Rieflin as CEO and a member of the board of directors. Rieflin brings over 20 years of industry experience to NGM, most recently as president and director at XenoPort. Prior to that, he was executive vice president, administration, CFO, general counsel and secretary for Tularik, which was acquired by Amgen in 2004.

Thomas Werner has been named president and CEO of Accera (Broomfield, CO, USA). He was previously managing director and senior vice president of GlaxoSmithKline in Germany and had served as CEO of the GSK Foundation. In March 2009, Werner was elected to the Accera's board of directors.

Altheos (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has appointed Barbara Wirostko chief medical officer. Wirostko was previously senior medical director and the glaucoma medical team leader at Pfizer where she was responsible for pipeline strategy in glaucoma.