Creabilis (Canterbury, UK) has announced the appointment of Catherine Moukheibir (right) as chairman of its board of directors. From 2008 to 2010, Moukheibir held the post of CFO of Belgian specialty pharmaceutical company Movetis, during which she led its $285 million IPO (initial public offering) on Euronext Brussels and subsequent acquisition by Shire for $636 million. She is currently a nonexecutive board member of Ablynx and Zealand Pharma and a member of the management board of Innate Pharma.

“I am delighted to have been appointed to lead the Creabilis board at this important time in the company's development,” Moukheibir said. “The potential of [lead product] CT327 in the treatment of pruritic conditions is a significant opportunity and the data reported so far demonstrates the power of Creabilis' pipeline and its unique Low Systemic Exposure platform technology.”

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Boston) has announced the appointment of Sangeeta N. Bhatia to its board of directors as an independent director. Bhatia was elected to serve a three-year term ending in 2018. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also serves as director of MIT's Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies.

SteadyMed (San Ramon, CA, USA) has appointed Elizabeth A. Cermak to its board of directors. Cermak has served on the board of directors of Clarus Therapeutics since 2014. She was previously executive vice president, chief commercial officer of Pozen, Inc., and before that was worldwide vice president for Johnson & Johnson.

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical (Novato, CA, USA) has appointed Jayson Dallas as chief commercial officer, a newly created position. Dallas most recently served as general manager of Roche in the UK. Previously, he was head of global oncology launch excellence and biosimilar strategy at Genentech.

Asha Das has been named vice president of clinical development and medical affairs at Tocagen (San Diego). She previously held positions of increasing responsibility at Genentech, including leading activities related to the approval and launch of Avastin (bevacizumab) in recurrent glioblastoma, expansion into platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and metastatic cervical cancer. Before Genentech, Das was an associate director at Eisai, and head of the neuro-oncology program at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

Medical device company Freedom Meditech (San Diego) has appointed John Gerace as CEO and a member of the company's board of directors. Gerace brings more than 25 years of industry experience, spending six and a half years at Life Technologies (acquired by Thermo Fisher in 2014) leading the applied sciences division. He also served as vice president and general manager of the PCR systems business unit within Life Technologies.

Merus (Utrecht, the Netherlands) has announced that Mark Iwicki has been appointed as president of its supervisory board. Iwicki most recently served as president and CEO of Civitas Therapeutics until its acquisition by Acorda Therapeutics in 2014. Previously, he was CEO of Blend Therapeutics and Sunovion Pharmaceuticals.

Bob Licht, senior vice president and chief corporation counsel at Biogen for the past eight years, has joined the law firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart (Boston) as a partner in its life sciences group.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has appointed Ronald A. Martell as executive chairman succeeding Ted W. Love, who will continue to serve on the board of directors. Martell is currently a member of the KaloBios board and most recently served as CEO of Sevion Therapeutics.

Gene therapy company AveXis (Dallas) has named Sean P. Nolan CEO and a member of the board of directors. He was previously chief business officer at InterMune.

Clinical-stage oncology company ProNAi Therapeutics (Vancouver) has appointed Nicole Onetto and Robert Pelzer to its board of directors. Onetto has served as deputy director and CSO at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research since November 2009. She was previously senior vice president and chief medical officer at ZymoGenetics from 2005 to 2009. She also previously served as executive vice president and chief medical officer of OSI Pharmaceuticals, senior vice president, medical affairs of Gilead Sciences and vice president, medical affairs of NeXstar. Pelzer served as the president of Novartis Corp. from 2008 to 2013, with responsibility for the Novartis Group companies in the United States.

Turing Pharmaceuticals (New York) has named Eliseo Oreste Salinas (right) president of R&D. He joins Turing from Relmada Therapeutics, where he served as president, CSO and head of R&D. Previously he was executive vice president and director of R&D for Stem Cells, Inc.

Peter Willinger has been named CFO of Apogenix (Heidelberg, Germany). He has 15 years of financial management experience in the life sciences industry, having formerly served as CFO of LION Bioscience and SYGNIS Pharma.