David Y. Liu (right) has been appointed CSO of Protagonist Therapeutics (Menlo Park, CA, USA). A 26-year veteran of the biotech industry, Liu was most recently COO and co-founder of Trenovus. Before that, he served as vice president of research and a corporate officer at FibroGen, director of inflammation research at Scios, and in positions at COR Therapeutics and Cetus Corp.

“David's impressive track record in basic discovery, translational research and clinical development of drugs for inflammatory indications will serve Protagonist well as our company advances its novel peptides from discovery to preclinical and clinical stage development for both our own pipeline and that of our collaborators,” says Protagonist's president and CEO Dinesh V. Patel. “We are very pleased to welcome him to the Protagonist management team.”

Coronado Biosciences (Burlington, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of George Avgerinos as senior vice president, biologics operations. Avgerinos has spent the past 23 years at Abbott Laboratories and made the move in January to spinoff AbbVie, most recently as vice president of manufacturing sciences and external partnerships for Humira.

Innovus Pharmaceuticals (La Jolla, CA, USA) has named Morgan Brown executive vice president and CFO. Brown has more than 20 years of financial and accounting experience, serving in a similar capacity at medical device company World Heart Corp. until its 2009 acquisition by Heartware International. Since then, he has been consulting for Heartware.

Drug delivery startup GrayBug (Baltimore) has announced the appointment of Gerald D. Cagle as a senior advisor and head of business development. Cagle was formerly senior vice president and CSO at Alcon Laboratories.

Rheonix (Ithaca, NY, USA) has appointed Frank Gill as vice president of manufacturing. Gill has over 15 years of experience building operational and supply chain infrastructure for early-stage companies in the biotech and medical device fields. Most recently, he was director, reagent manufacturing operations at 454 Life Sciences, a division of Roche.

Synergy Pharmaceuticals (New York) has appointed Patrick H. Griffin chief medical officer. A board-certified physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology, Griffin was most recently associate vice president, clinical development with Sanofi-aventis.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has named Donald R. Joseph (right) as chief legal officer. Joseph brings almost 20 years of biopharma industry experience, serving as general counsel, corporate secretary and in other senior management roles at companies including Abgenix and Renovis. He was most recently CEO of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) from February to November 2012 and COO from April 2010 to January 2012; he is currently chairman of the BVGH board of directors.

James S. MacDonald has been elected to the board of directors of Hurel (N. Brunswick, NJ, USA). He is the retired executive vice president of preclinical development for Schering-Plough Research Institute, the pharmaceutical development arm of Schering Corp.

Keith Nolop has been named chief medical officer at Kite Pharma (Los Angeles). Nolop has more than 20 years of drug development experience in the biotech and pharma industries, previously serving as senior vice president of development and chief medical officer at Plexxikon (a member of the Daiichi Sankyo Group).

Antibiotic developer Trius Therapeutics (San Diego) has named Matthew Onaitis general counsel and secretary, a newly created role. Onaitis was previously senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, where he led the legal, compliance and business development functions.

Protelica (Hayward, CA, USA) has appointed Ed O'Sullivan to its board of directors. O'Sullivan has over 20 years of experience in the technology and life science industry, serving as CFO of startups and “Fortune 50” companies alike. He is currently a managing partner at CFO Connect, a business management and financial advisory firm.

Andy Page has been named president of 23andMe (Mountain View, CA, USA), a newly created position. Tasked with helping develop business strategy to grow the company's customer base, he will also be in charge of product and engineering, marketing, finance, business development, laboratory operations and legal and regulatory issues. Page has served on 23andMe's board since last year. He was most recently president of Gilt Groupe, a luxury shopping site.

Robert Pelzer has been elected to the board of directors of Qu Biologics (Vancouver). He was most recently president of Novartis Corp.

Charles Rowland has been named to the board of directors at Idenix Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA). He currently serves as vice president and CFO of ViroPharma.

Rafael Simon (right) has joined Microvi Biotechnologies (Hayward, CA, USA) as chairman of the board. He was previously COO of Zenon Environmental, a leading water treatment company prior to its acquisition by GE Water in 2006 for $700 million.

Biotech entrepreneur and Verastem (Cambridge, MA, USA) co-founder Christoph Westphal has resigned as CEO of the stem cell company and will become executive chairman of its board. Verastem's president and COO, Robert Forrester, has succeeded Westphal as CEO and has joined the board of directors.