Gene therapy developer Prevail Therapeutics (New York) has announced the appointment of Francois Nader (right) to its board of directors. Nader was president, CEO and executive director of NPS Pharma from 2008 until 2015, when the company was acquired by Shire. Before joining NPS Pharma, he was a venture partner at Care Capital.

“I am honored to join the board of Prevail Therapeutics,” said Nader. “The Prevail team has already made great progress in developing potential treatments for Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, and I look forward to partnering with the team to help accelerate important therapeutic advances for patients with these devastating illnesses.”

Gastrointestinal disease treatment developer Ritter Pharmaceuticals (Los Angeles) has appointed John W. Beck as CFO. He served in the same position at Ardea Biosciences before it was acquired by AstraZeneca.

Clinical-stage biopharma company Eloxx Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA, USA) has appointed Neil Belloff executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Belloff joins the company from Celgene, where he served as senior corporate counsel since 2011.

Kronos Bio (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Norbert Bischofberger as president and CEO after completing an $18-million seed financing. Prior to joining Kronos, Bischofberger spent 30 years at Gilead Sciences, most recently serving as executive vice president, R&D and CSO.

Richard Brudnick has been appointed chief business officer and head of strategy at Codiak BioSciences (Cambridge, MA, USA). He was previously executive vice president of business development and alliance management at Bioverativ, a company he helped found in 2016, before its acquisition by Sanofi in March.

Gavin Corcoran has joined Axovant Sciences (Basel, Switzerland) as executive vice president of R&D. He most recently served as chief medical officer at Allergan and previously served as chief medical officer of Actavis. In addition, Michael Hayden has been appointed as a senior scientific advisor to Axovant and chairman of the company's newly established scientific advisory board. Hayden recently served as president of global R&D and CSO at Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Avacta Group (Wetherby and Cambridge, UK) has named Eliot Forster, most recently CEO of Immunocore, as non-executive chairman of the board, succeeding Trevor Nichols, who has acted as chairman since January 2014. Nichols will remain on the board as a non-executive director.

Aclaris Therapeutics (Wayne, PA, USA) has appointed David Gordon chief medical officer. Gordon was most recently senior vice president and head of dermatology R&D at GlaxoSmithKline, where he served for the past 18 years.

Compugen (Holon, Israel) has announced the appointment of Gilead Halevy, founding member and general partner of Kedma Capital Partners; Kinneret Livnat Savitzky, interim CEO and board member of FutuRx; and Sanford (Sandy) Zweifach, founder and CEO of Nuvelution Pharma, to its board of directors.

Axcella Health (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the appointment of William (Bill) Hinshaw as president and CEO. Hinshaw has nearly three decades of global pharmaceutical experience and was most recently executive vice president and head of US oncology at Novartis.

Astellas (Northbrook, IL, USA) has named Nahrin Marino vice president, head of ethics & compliance, Americas effective July 15. Previously, Marino served as deputy general counsel, regulatory for Astellas. Prior to Astellas, she worked at Dykema Gossett, representing corporations in pharmaceutical and medical device litigation.

AnaBios (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Chris Mathes as chief commercial officer. He joins AnaBios from Icagen, where he served in the same position. He also served as chief commercial officer at ChanTest, now part of Charles River Laboratories.

Amit Patel has been elected to the board of directors of privately held Calyptus Pharmaceuticals (Princeton, NJ, USA). Patel has 20 years of healthcare industry experience, most recently serving as senior vice president and president at Capsugel. Prior to Capsugel, he worked at Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, where he held the positions of executive vice president & head, North America, and senior vice president & head, global corporate development & strategic planning.

Yaping Shou has been appointed chief medical officer of clinical stage immuno-oncology company Trillium Therapeutics (Toronto). She joins Trillium from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where she was most recently executive medical director. Prior to joining Takeda, Shou held several clinical oncology positions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline.

Orbis Biosciences (Kansas City, MO, USA) has named Karl Strohmeier chief licensing officer and Brad Spitz vice president of business development. The two executives bring over five decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Strohmeier was previously a senior director at Teva Pharmaceuticals. Spitz was most recently US vice president of sales for ANGLE North America.

Joseph R. Swedish (right) has joined the board of directors of cell-based medicines developer Mesoblast (Melbourne). Swedish has over two decades of healthcare leadership experience, most recently serving as executive chairman, president and CEO of Anthem. He currently serves on the board of directors for IBM, CDW Corp. and Proteus Digital Health.

Nouscom (Basel, Switzerland) has named Adrian Woolfson chief medical officer. Woolfson most recently served as global clinical leader, early- and late-stage immuno-oncology/hematology at Pfizer.