Harold Varmus (right), head of the US National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (NCI) stepped down from his post effective March 31, 2015. In his five years leading NCI, Varmus created the institute's Center for Global Health, revitalized the cooperative clinical trials system, launched an initiative to find drugs that target the cell signaling pathway controlled by the RAS oncogene family and led the cancer component of the Precision Medicine Initiative, among other accomplishments. He was a co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Varmus joins Weill Cornell Medical College's faculty as the Lewis Thomas University Professor in order to continue to conduct research on fundamental aspects of cancer. He also joins the New York Genome Center as a senior associate core member to promote the use of cancer genomics throughout the New York region.

NIH Director Francis Collins says, “It has been our great fortune to have Harold at the helm of the NCI. His breadth and depth of expertise in biomedical research is unparalleled, and he's been a tremendous colleague to me and invaluable to the agency.” Douglas Lowy has been named acting director for NCI. A long-time NCI intramural researcher who received the 2014 National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his research that led to the development of the human papillomavirus vaccine, Lowy was most recently NCI's deputy director.

Celgene (Summit, NJ, USA) has elected Michael W. Bonney to its board of directors. Bonney previously served as CEO and board member of Cubist Pharmaceuticals.

Purdue Pharma (Stamford, CT, USA) has appointed Alan Butcher as senior vice president of licensing & business development. He had been vice president of business development at Shire Pharmaceuticals since 2012.

Annette Clancy has been appointed chair of the board of directors of Lysogene (Paris). She was previously a nonexecutive member of the board. Clancy will maintain her role as chair of the board of directors of Genable Technologies and ObsEva.

Cheryl Cohen, formerly chief commercial officer of Medivation, has been named to the board of directors of Tokai Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA).

William Daly (right) has joined Heart Metabolics (Dublin) as president, CEO and member of the board of directors. He has more than 20 years of experience in the biotech industry, most recently serving as senior vice president of operations and business development at Puma Biotechnology. Heart Metabolics also announced the appointment of Gregory Ayers, formerly a venture partner at MPM Capital, as chief medical officer.

23andMe (Mountain View, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Robert Gentleman as vice president of computational biology. He joins the company from Genentech, where he served as senior director of bioinformatics and computational biology.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals (Washington, DC, USA) has announced the appointment of Tom Gibbs as senior vice president, chief commercial officer. Gibbs has 20 years of pharma industry experience, most recently serving as vice president of worldwide commercial operations at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Dean Hakanson has been named chief medical officer of Otonomy (San Diego). He joins Otonomy from Novartis, where he served as vice president and head of health economics & outcomes research for US medical and drug regulatory affairs. Previous to Novartis, he was vice president of healthcare access at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

OpGen (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) has named Kevin Krenitsky president and Timothy C. Dec interim CFO. Krenitsky was most recently chief commercial officer and previously COO of Foundation Medicine. Dec has more than 20 years of financial leadership experience in technology and healthcare, holding CFO posts at Corvis, Clubwidesports and Fortress International Group.

Privately held Ovid Therapeutics (New York) has announced the appointment of Jeremy Levin as CEO. Levin has served as chairman of Ovid since 2014 and will continue to serve in that role. Most recently, he was president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries until October 2013.

Thomas Liquard has joined the board of directors of PharmaCyte Biotech (Silver Spring, MD, USA). In the past, he has served as CEO of Alchemia and senior director, portfolio development leader, emerging markets for the established products portfolio for Pfizer.

Ritter Pharmaceuticals (Los Angeles) has announced the appointment of Paul V. Maier to its board of directors. He was most recently CFO of Sequenom and was previously senior vice president and CFO of Ligand Pharmaceuticals.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Lawrence Olanoff to its board of directors. Olanoff has more than 30 years of pharma industry experience, most recently serving as a director and as COO of Forest Laboratories.

Merck Serono (Darmstadt, Germany) has named Alise Reicin senior vice president, head of global clinical development. Reicin brings extensive research and early/late clinical development expertise, having served as a vice president in various R&D capacities at Merck Sharp & Dohme for the last ten years.

Ximbio (London) has appointed Hugh Spotswood as senior business manager and Emily Haggerty as a scientific portfolio associate. Spotswood joins Ximbio from Merck Millipore, where he was business development manager.