DNA synthesis company SGI-DNA has announced the appointment of Todd R. Nelson (left) as CEO to lead the spin-out of the company from Synthetic Genomics. Nelson was previously responsible for leading several life sciences companies through expansive phases of financial and commercial growth, including eBioscience (acquired by Affymetrix, now Thermo Fisher), MP Biomedicals (acquired by Valeant Fine Chemicals), and most recently, DiscoverX (now Eurofins). In addition, he is the founder of Tonbo Biosciences and TCRx Corp.

“Todd is a proven life sciences leader who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to commercial organizations like SGI-DNA with disruptive instrument and reagent platforms, and we are very pleased to have him lead the organization during this time of accelerated growth,” said Oliver Fetzer, CEO of Synthetic Genomics and SGI-DNA board member. “With more than 20 years' industry experience and an outstanding value creation track record in prior CEO roles, Todd is poised to take SGI-DNA and its exciting platform centered around the BioXp System, the world's first benchtop DNA printer, to new heights.”

Tilos Therapeutics has appointed Jessie English CSO. Prior to joining Tilos, she served as vice president and head of discovery research immunooncology translational innovation platform at EMD Serono, Merck KGaA. Previously, she was head of research at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School.

Atul Gawande has been named CEO of the not-for-profit healthcare venture launched in January by J.P. Morgan Chase, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. The yet-unnamed company, based in Boston, is aimed at lowering healthcare costs for the three companies' combined 1.2 million employees, with the potential to expand coverage to all Americans. Gawande is a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a professor in the department of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also executive director at Ariadne Labs, chairman of Lifebox, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

Privately held Breath Therapeutics (Munich) has announced the appointment of Noreen Roth Henig chief medical officer. Henig brings more than 20 years of clinical and development leadership experience at emerging and leading biopharma companies. She was previously CMO of ProQR Therapeutics and senior director, global medical affairs, respiratory at Gilead Sciences.

Steven Kafka (left) has been appointed to the board of directors of Relay Therapeutics. He was most recently president and COO and formerly chief business officer at Foundation Medicine. Previously, he served in executive roles at oncology drug discovery and development companies including as COO and CFO for Aileron Therapeutics, and vice president of finance for Infinity Pharmaceuticals.

Cancer immunotherapy developer Apeiron Biologics (Vienna) has named Peter Llewellyn-Davies CEO, succeeding the retiring Hans Loibner. Llewellyn-Davies has over 25 years of international management experience. He joined Apeiron's management board in October 2017, serving as CFO and chief business officer.

David Moriarty has been named vice president of development operations of Spruce Biosciences. Prior to joining Spruce, he served as vice president of clinical operations and data management at Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Jianxin Ren has retired as chairman of the board of directors of Syngenta. He is succeeded by Gaoning “Frank” Ning, who was recently appointed chairman of China National Chemical Corp. Since December 2015, Ning has also served as chairman of the Sinochem Group and was previously chairman of COFCO Corp. and vice chairman and president of China Resources (Holdings) Co. Ltd.

Karyopharm Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Anand Varadan as executive vice president, chief commercial officer. He brings over 25 years of commercial operations and strategy experience, most recently through his consultancy Ignition Insights. Prior to forming Ignition, he served as chief commercial officer for Chiasma and vice president of marketing for Amgen's US inflammation and nephrology business unit.

Concept Life Sciences (Manchester, UK) has appointed John Vu (left) as business development director for the US West Coast. He joins Concept from Eurofins, where he was director of business development. Previously, he was executive director of commercial operations at Sertagen.

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals has hired Greg Williams as COO and David P. Snow as chief business officer. Williams has over 30 years of regulatory affairs, compliance, quality, manufacturing, commercial and product development programs, most recently at Radius Health. Snow was most recently COO of Radius Health and was previously president of AstraZeneca's China business.

The non-profit Institute for Protein Innovation has appointed Wei Yang director of target discovery and Sharon Klein director of philanthropy. Previously, Yang served as director of molecular biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. Klein joins IPI with nearly 20 years of philanthropy and development experience as executive director of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island chapters of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.