Personalized cancer diagnostics company Foundation Medicine (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Michael J. Pellini (right) as president and CEO. He succeeds founding CEO Alexis Borisy, who will remain on the company's board of directors and will assume the position of chairman. Most recently, Pellini held the position of president and COO of Clarient. Before that, he served as vice president, life sciences at Safeguard Scientifics, executive vice president and COO at Lakewood Pathology Associates and president and CEO of Genomics Collaborative.

“The rapid advancements in genomics and growth in the number of available targeted therapies provide ever-expanding opportunities for more effective, individualized treatment of cancer patients,” says Pellini. “Foundation Medicine's approach, which uses next-generation sequencing to analyze relevant genomic information in cancer tissue, represents a potential breakthrough in cancer diagnostics. I look forward to working with the Foundation Medicine team to bring this important technology to the clinic in order to benefit physicians and their patients.”

Roger Beachy (right) has resigned his position as the director of the US National Institute of Food and Agriculture “to spend more time with his wife, his children and his grandchildren,” according to a memo released by the US Department of Agriculture. Beachy was the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and Science Academy, among others, and is a recipient of the prestigious Wolf Prize in Agriculture.

Edward Garmey has been appointed to serve as chief medical officer and senior vice president of Cerulean Pharma (Cambridge, MA, USA). He succeeds John Ryan, who has been named chairman of the company's medical advisory board. Previously, Garmey served as vice president for clinical development at ArQule.

Inhibikase Therapeutics (Atlanta) has named Steven C. Gilman to its board of directors. He currently serves as executive vice president, R&D, and CSO of Cubist Pharmaceuticals.

Kinex Pharmaceuticals (Buffalo, NY, USA) has announced the promotion of David Hangauer from founding senior vice president of research to CSO. Hangauer spent nine years at Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories. At the University at Buffalo, he developed a new approach to the design of protein kinase inhibitors, which led to Mimetica, the patented technology Kinex Pharmaceuticals licensed from the university.

Mucosis (Groningen, The Netherlands) has named Thomas Johnston as chief business officer. He joins the company from Novavax, where he was vice president of strategy. Before going to Novavax, Johnston served as an executive-level strategic consultant in a number of industries including biotech.

Richard Jones has been named to the newly created role of CFO at Shield Therapeutics (Wollerau, Switzerland). A member of the company's board since early 2010, he has more than 12 years of corporate finance experience, most recently as director and head of healthcare at Brewin Dolphin Investment Banking.

Patheon (Toronto) has announced the appointment of Michael E. Lytton as executive vice president, corporate development and strategy and general counsel. He was most recently with Biogen Idec where he held the position of executive vice president, corporate and business development. Previously, Lytton was a general partner with venture capital firm Oxford Bioscience Partners and practiced law as a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge and Wilmer Hale.

Margaret McGlynn and Terrence C. Kearney have joined the board of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA). McGlynn spent nearly 30 years at Merck, where she most recently served as president, global vaccines and infectious diseases. She is a director at Air Products, Amicus Therapeutics and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Kearney has more than three decades of global healthcare experience, most recently at Hospira where he held the role of COO from 2006 through 2010 and CFO from 2004 to 2006.

Farzad (Zod) Nazem (right) has been named to the to board of directors of platform company NextBio (Cupertino, CA, USA). Nazem served as chief technology officer at Yahoo! from 1996 until his retirement in 2007. Previously, he spent 11 years with Oracle as vice president of the media and web server division.

Activaero (Gemünden (Wohra), Germany) has appointed Christian M. Pangratz chief business officer, replacing Henrik Luessen. Pangratz joins the company from Nektar Therapeutics where he served as executive director of business development. Luessen has decided to refocus on his own consultancy firm but will continue to support Activaero's business development team on a part-time basis.

PolyTherics (London) has announced that Keith Powell will step down from the board and as CEO to pursue other interests. John Burt, who joined PolyTherics as chief business officer in November 2010, will become CEO and join the board. John was previously CEO of Thiakis, a company he co-founded in 2004, which was acquired by Wyeth in 2008.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine (New York) and Pacific Biosciences (Menlo Park, CA, USA) have announced a collaboration to advance clinical research through the Mount Sinai Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology. The institute will be the hub of genomics research at Mount Sinai, collaborating with 13 other disease-oriented and core technology–based institutes at Mount Sinai. It will be led by Eric E. Schadt, who in addition will continue in his role as CSO of Pacific Biosciences.