Genomic drug developer Warp Drive Bio (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named founder Gregory Verdine (right) CEO, succeeding Alexis Borisy. Verdine is a co-founder of the company, as well as the Erving Professor of Chemistry in the Harvard University Departments of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Molecular and Cellular Biology. Borisy will remain on the board of directors and assume the position of executive chairman. In addition, Warp Drive Bio has appointed former president and COO of Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals James Nichols to the newly created role of COO, and Julian Adams, president of R&D at Infinity Pharmaceuticals, to the board.

“In the year since the launch of Warp Drive Bio, the team has invented a completely new way of discovering 'nature's drugs', which are hiding in plain sight literally in the soil of our own backyards,” says Verdine. “Warp Drive Bio is leading the rebirth of natural products, a field that has historically made a powerful contribution to the betterment of human health, but had worked itself into seeming obsolescence. We believe Warp Drive Bio's proprietary genomic technologies will propel natural products into the forefront of the future pharmacopeia.”

OphthaliX (Petach Tikva, Israel) has announced the appointment of Michael Belkin to the company's board of directors. He is a professor of ophthalmology at Tel Aviv University and the director of the ophthalmic technologies laboratory at the university's Eye Research Institute at the Sheba Medical Center.

Prosonix (Oxford, UK) has announced the appointment of Frank Condella as non-executive director. Condella has over 30 years of experience in the pharma and healthcare industry. He serves as president and CEO of Columbia Laboratories and non-executive chairman of Skyepharma, where he was CEO between 2006 and 2008.

Cancer vaccine developer Immunicum (Gothenburg, Sweden) has appointed Henrik Elofsson COO, responsible for preclinical and clinical trial project management and for the establishment of a large-scale production process. Elofsson was most recently at Arterion, where he worked as vice president in charge of R&D and in the establishment of new production processes.

Edward Hodgkin (right), a partner with venture capital firm Syncona Partners, has been named chairman of the UK's BioIndustry Association (London) effective October 30, 2013. A nonexecutive director on the BIA board since 2010, Hodgkin succeeds Tim Edwards, who will formally step down at the October board meeting after three years as BIA Chairman. Edwards will remain a member of the BIA Board.

Molecular diagnostics company CombiMatrix (Irvine, CA, USA) has named Robert E. Hoffman to its board of directors. He currently serves as senior vice president, finance and CFO of Arena Pharmaceuticals, which he joined in 1997.

Finox Biotech (Burgdorf, Switzerland) has named Gavin Jelic-Masterton as CEO. Previously the company's senior vice president of marketing & commercial operations, Jelic-Masterton joined Finox in February 2013 and has more than 15 years experience in pharmaceutical and biotech marketing and sales.

Orexo (Uppsala, Sweden) has announced the appointment of Henrik Juuel as executive vice president and CFO. Juuel will be a member of the company's executive management team, succeeding Carl-Johan Blomberg. In addition, Robert A. DeLuca has been named president of Orexo's US subsidiary. DeLuca will also become a member of Orexo's executive management team.

Richard Koenig has joined privately held contract research organization Rho (Chapel Hill, NC, USA) as vice president of operations. He has close to 30 years of operations management and clinical development experience, most recently as vice president, operations for ClinStar.

Oxford BioTherapeutics (Oxford, UK) has named Bryan G. Morton as its new nonexecutive chairman. Morton has over 30 years experience as a successful entrepreneur and senior manager in the pharma industry, most recently serving as CEO of EUSA Pharma, a global specialty oncology company acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals in 2012. Previously, he founded and was appointed CEO of Zeneus Pharma.

Novavax (Rockville, MD, USA) has appointed Barclay A. “Buck” Phillips to the position of senior vice president and CFO, with responsibility for managing the company's finance, treasury and communications functions. Previously, Phillips was senior vice president and CFO of Micromet, which was acquired by Amgen in 2012.

Clinical stage ophthalmology company Amakem (Diepenbeek, Belgium) has appointed Kieran Rooney as vice president, business development. Rooney brings to Amakem over 25 years of experience in the biotech and pharma industries. He is the founder and managing director of Halo BioConsulting.

Brad Thompson has been appointed to the board of directors of Lorus Therapeutics (Toronto). He has held the positions of chairman of the board and president and CEO of Oncolytics Biotech since 1999. He is also currently a board member of Immunovaccine.

Metabolix (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the promotion of Johan van Walsem to the position of COO, a newly created role. He most recently served as the company's vice president of manufacturing and product development.

Sidney Wolfe, longtime director of the Public Citizen's Health Research Group (Washington), has relinquished his leadership of the consumer advocacy group, though he will continue his work under a new title: founder and senior adviser. Wolfe founded HRG with Ralph Nader in 1971, becoming one of the pharma industry's greatest antagonists on the issues of drug safety, patient access to care and medical board oversight of doctors. His successor at the Health Research Group is Michael Carome, who had served as Wolfe's deputy director since 2010.