Clinical-stage biopharma company MyoKardia (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Mary Cranston (right) to its board of directors and as chair of the audit committee. Cranston is a retired senior partner and former chair and CEO of international law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. She currently serves as a director of Visa Inc. (where she is chair of the audit committee), of The Chemours Company, and of CSAA Insurance (chair of the nominations and compensation committee). “We are truly fortunate to have gained a board member and audit committee chair of Mary's caliber,” said MyoKardia CEO Tassos Gianakakos. “She is a highly respected leader and executive with a diverse set of industry experiences that will be exceptionally valuable as we scale our company to develop new and promising therapies for rare, heritable cardiovascular diseases.”

Probiodrug (Halle/Saale, Germany) has announced the appointment of Mark Booth as chief business officer and member of the management board. He was most recently chief commercial officer at Orexigen Therapeutics and previously president of Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America.

Apollo Therapeutics (Stevenage, UK) has appointed Richard Butt as CEO. He joins the company from Pfizer, where he was most recently senior director and research project leader, clinical research at Pfizer Neusentis within the neuroscience and pain research unit.

CASI Pharmaceuticals (Rockville, MD, USA) has named James E. Goldschmidt to lead its business development team. Goldschmidt has over 25 years of biotech and pharma industry experience, including most recently at Macrophage Therapeutics, and previously at ImmuneXcite, TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson, among others.

Millendo Therapeutics (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) has announced the appointments of Thomas Hoover as vice president, commercial strategy, and Andrew G. Spencer as vice president, preclinical research and development. Hoover joins Millendo from Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, where he most recently served as vice president, new products planning and corporate development. Spencer most recently served as vice president, pharmacology/DMPK at Ardelyx.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (Madison, WI, USA) has selected Erik Iverson as its managing director effective 1 July 2016. He will succeed the retiring Carl E. Gulbrandsen, who has served as WARF's managing director since 2000. Iverson currently serves as president, business & operations, of the Infectious Disease Research Institute. Before joining IDRI in 2011, he was associate general counsel at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Peter Luk has been named vice president, Asia-Pacific for Gyros Protein Technologies (Uppsala, Sweden). He was most recently general manager of ProteinSimple, Asia, and before that was vice president, Asia-Pacific of Molecular Devices.

Kirk D. Malloy has been appointed to the board of directors of Edico Genome (San Diego). Malloy was most recently senior vice president and general manager of life sciences and applied markets at Illumina.

Clinical stage biopharma Motif Bio (London) has appointed Pete A. Meyers as chief financial officer and Rajesh B. Shukla as vice president, clinical operations. Meyers joins the company from TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, where he was CFO and treasurer. Prior to his role at TetraLogic, he was co-head of global healthcare investment banking at Deutsche Bank Securities. Shukla was most recently senior medical director, clinical development and medical affairs at Acorda Therapeutics. He was previously head, R&D global clinical and medical affairs in Pfizer's global established products unit.

Kerri Mowen, one of the scientific founders of Padlock Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA, USA), died on 14 February of a brain aneurysm. Mowen was a faculty member at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA, USA), where she was awarded the Donald and Delia Baxter Foundation Young Career Scientist Award, and was also named the Hulda Irene Duggan Arthritis Investigator by the Arthritis Foundation. In January, Padlock had announced that Mowen was to play a larger role at the company, overseeing a team of biologists at a new facility in La Jolla.

Profusa (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has named Bradley W. Rice vice president of engineering R&D, responsible for fluorescence-based detection devices and tissue optics research. Rice served most recently as senior vice president of systems R&D at Caliper Life Sciences and senior director of systems R&D at PerkinElmer.

Industrial biotechnology company Microvi (Hayward, CA, USA) has appointed Murli Tolaney and Vonnie Estes to its board of directors. Tolaney is chairman emeritus of global engineering firm MWH. He joined the company in 1973 and became its chairman and CEO in 1992. Estes is a veteran bioeconomy executive who has held senior positions at Granbio, Zymergen, Codexis, Monsanto, and Dupont. In addition, Microvi announced today that current board member C. Robert Kidder has been named the chairman of the board.

Tunitas Therapeutics (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Mervyn Turner to its board of directors. Before retiring from Merck & Co., Turner was the company's first chief strategy officer. Prior to that, he served as head of worldwide licensing and external research and site head for both Merck's largest R&D facility (Rahway, NJ) and its most productive lab (Merck Frosst, Canada). He is currently an advisor to Bay City Capital.

Zytoprotec (Vienna) announced the appointments of Joerg Vienken and Norbert Riedel to its supervisory board. From 1996 to 2013, Vienken was vice president, biosciences at Fresenius Medical Care. Riedel was head of R&D at Baxter and has been involved as founder, consultant, and CEO for life sciences companies including ARIAD, Naurex, Aptinyx, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and MediGene.