FORMA Therapeutics (Watertown, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of Jim Winkler (right) as vice president, discovery and translational biology. Winkler has over 30 years' experience in the biotech and pharma industry. Prior to joining FORMA, he held various leadership positions at McNeil Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Array Biopharma, and he most recently served as CSO at Arvinas.

“Jim's impressive track record of accomplishments, most notably the discovery and advancement of 16 drugs into clinical development, with several demonstrating mid- to late-stage clinical success, provides FORMA with additional experienced leadership to cultivate and manage our broad therapeutic pipeline,” said John Hohneker, executive vice president and head of R&D at FORMA.

Privately held Cytovation (Bergen, Norway) has announced the appointment of Raj Airey as venture developer and Federico Grego as strategic counsel. Airey brings 28 years of operating experience in the healthcare industry, having held senior leadership roles at Pfizer and Baxter, and was also a co-founder of India's first healthcare accelerator. Grego has 20 years of experience in the biopharma and banking industries. He currently serves as CEO of Spire Bioventures.

Oncology company Nouscom (Basel, Switzerland) has named Marina Udier Blagovic to the newly created position of COO. She joins the company from Versant Ventures where she was an operating principal. Prior to Versant, she was the global head of neurodegeneration at Novartis. In addition, Nouscom has announced the appointment of new board directors Jean-Paul Prieels, Vincent Brichard and Gianni Gromo.

Stephen Farrand has been named chief technical officer at Jounce Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA, USA), with responsibility for all aspects of process development and manufacturing activities. He brings 25 years of industry experience, having played a leadership role for the development and first approval of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) while serving as vice president, bioprocess development at Merck. Farrand was also formerly senior vice president, head of global manufacturing at NantKwest.

Drug discovery company Enterprise Therapeutics (Brighton, UK) has named John Ford CEO. Ford co-founded Xention, Ario Pharma and Metrion Biosciences and was most recently a member of the executive team at Dezima.

Ben Goodger (right) has been appointed general counsel of Singapore-based ASLAN Pharmaceuticals. He joins the company from multinational law firm Osborne Clarke, where he was until recently partner and head of intellectual property (IP) licensing and transactions in the United Kingdom. He previously ran the firm's China business and Asia commercial IP groups.

Christopher R. Heery has been named chief medical officer at Bavarian Nordic (Copenhagen), overseeing preclinical and clinical development of the company's infectious disease and immuno-oncology portfolio. He was most recently director of the clinical trials group of the laboratory of tumor immunology and biology at the National Cancer Institute.

Elcelyx Therapeutics (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Sandesh “Sandy” Mahatme to its board of directors. Mahatme is currently senior vice president, CFO at Sarepta Therapeutics. Prior to joining Sarepta in 2012, Mahatme was at Celgene, where he served in various roles including senior vice president of corporate development, senior vice president of finance, corporate treasurer and head of tax. He also serves on the boards of Flexion Therapeutics and Aeglea Biotherapeutics.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO; Washington, DC) has announced the appointment of Dana O'Brien as executive vice president for food and agriculture. O'Brien had been named acting executive vice president in July. He previously served as BIO's senior director of federal government relations since March 2011. Prior to BIO, he was legislative director for the late Congressman Ike Skelton (D-MO).

As part of the expansion of its CRO and collaborative drug discovery business and move to larger premises in Granta Park, Metrion Biosciences (Cambridge, UK) has announced the appointment of Andrew Southan (right) as head of commercial operations. Southan has over 25 years' experience within the life science industry. He joins Metrion from Charles River Laboratories where he was director of ion channel biology.

Paris-based MedDay has appointed Janet Vergis and George M. Garibaldi as independent non-executive directors to its board. Vergis has more than 25 years' experience in the healthcare industry and currently serves as an executive advisor to private equity firms. She was most recently CEO of OraPharma and previously served as president of Janssen Pharmaceutica, McNeil Pediatrics and Ortho-McNeill Neurologics. Garibaldi was most recently vice president of neuroscience and product development at Hoffmann-La Roche.

Li Zhou has been appointed vice president, cell engineering for immunotherapy developer TxCell (Valbonne, France). He brings extensive pharmaceutical experience in antibody and T-cell engineering, most notably as a laboratory head and investigator at the Novartis Biologics Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he led the discovery and engineering activities on chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) for cancer immunotherapy, with lead candidates now in clinical trials.