E-Scape Bio has announced the appointment of Julie Anne Smith (left) as president, CEO and member of the board of directors. Smith brings over 20 years of leadership in the life science industry, having led private and publicly held companies through development and commercialization of therapies for neurodegenerative and orphan diseases. She previously served as president and CEO of Nuredis, president and CEO of Raptor Pharmaceuticals, and chief commercial officer of Enobia Pharmaceuticals.

“I'm delighted to join E-Scape at this time of rapid momentum for the company and need for therapeutic alternatives for neurodegenerative diseases,” said Smith. “Backed by a stellar investor base, E-Scape has a robust pipeline of small molecule drugs targeting genetically defined patient populations suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. I look forward to building our team and executing a development and financing strategy that will enable us to advance these programs aimed at tackling some of the most devastating healthcare challenges of our time, such as orphan lysosomal storage disorders, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, to patients in need of therapies.”

Tarveda Therapeutics has announced the appointments of Jeffrey Bloss as chief medical officer, Steven A. Hamburger as vice president, regulatory affairs, and Laura Mei as vice president, clinical operations. Bloss most recently served as chief medical officer and senior vice president, medical affairs at Aegerion; Hamburger was vice president, regulatory affairs and quality assurance at BERG; and Mei served as executive director, global clinical operations and metabolic franchise head at Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

Robert M. Brenner has been appointed executive vice president and head of R&D at Codiak BioSciences. He joins the company from Orionis Biosciences, where he was executive vice president and chief medical officer. Previously, he served as president and CEO of AlloCure.

Gerald Cox is stepping down as chief medical officer of genome editing company Editas Medicine at the end of the year. He has been at Editas for two years, having previously spent 16 years at Sanofi Genzyme. A search is underway to find Cox's successor.

Roland Diggelmann has left his position as head of Roche's diagnostics division. Taking over until a successor is named is Michael Heuer, Roche Diagnostics' region head for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Heuer joined Boehringer Mannheim in 1983 and, following Roche's acquisition in 1998, was appointed to his current role in 2008.

Vienna-based Apeiron Biologics has announced the appointment of Anderson Gaweco as chief medical and scientific officer. Gaweco is the founder and former CEO/CSO of Innovimmune Biotherapeutics.

Halozyme Therapeutics has named Benjamin Hickey as chief commercial officer. Hickey joins Halozyme from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he most recently served as general manager, UK & Ireland.

Antibody therapeutic developer ProMIS Neurosciences has announced the appointment of James Kupiec as chief medical officer, a newly created role. Kupiec most recently served as vice president, global clinical leader for Parkinson's disease, and clinical head of the neuroscience research unit for Pfizer in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Clinical-stage oncology company ORIC Pharmaceuticals has named Pratik Multani chief medical officer. Most recently, Multani was chief medical officer of Ignyta, which was acquired by Roche in December 2017. Prior to Ignyta, he served as chief medical officer of Fate Therapeutics.

Tris Pharma has appointed Jeffery Palmer as vice president and head of quality & compliance. Most recently, he served as quality head at Lupin Pharmaceuticals.

Andy Richards CBE (left) has been named to the board of Owlstone Medical (Cambridge, UK) as a non-executive director. He was a founder and executive director of Chiroscience until its merger with Celltech in 1999, and since then has founded, invested in and helped to scale more than 25 innovative ventures, including Vectura, Arakis and Cambridge Biotechnology.

Clinical-stage biopharma Probiodrug (Halle, Germany) has announced that Michael Schaeffer has been appointed to the position of executive vice president of business and strategy. Schaeffer brings more than 15 years of experience across pharma and biotech in strategic business development and scientific project and alliance management. Prior to joining Probiodrug, he was the founder and managing director of biotech companies Crelux and SiReen.

Cambridge, UK–based Metrion Biosciences has announced it has made two senior appointments to its management team. Edward Stevens (left) joins the company as head of drug discovery and Andrew Lightfoot has been named head of medicinal chemistry and discovery funding. Stevens joins Metrion from Ario Pharma, where he was chief scientific officer. Lightfoot is currently CEO at Procarta Biosystems and in his new role at Metrion will continue in this position.

Steven Zelenkofske has been named executive vice president and chief medical officer of Achillion Pharmaceuticals. He served most recently as chief medical officer of uniQure, the company he joined last summer from AstraZeneca.