Philippe Archinard

Transgene (Strasbourg, France) has appointed Philippe Archinard as CEO and a board director. He replaces Jean-Francois Carmier, who is leaving the company for personal reasons. Mr. Archinard began his career with bioMerieux, eventually serving as CEO of its US operations. Since March 2000, he has served as CEO of Innogenetics.

Charles J. Casamento has joined Osteologix (San Francisco) as CEO, president and director. He previously held executive positions at Sandoz, Roche, Johnson & Johnson and Genzyme, and has served as CEO for Interneuron and RiboGene, both of which he took public.

Cytokine PharmaSciences has named Vidal F. de la Cruz to the position of vice president, business development. Dr. de la Cruz joined Cytokine in 2001 as director of preclinical development.

Applied Biosystems Group (Foster City, CA, USA) has promoted Dennis Gilbert to CSO and vice president of research at Applied Biosystems, and a vice president of its parent company, Applera. Dr. Gilbert was previously vice president of advanced research and technology, and vice president, genomics applications.

David J. Gury has been elected chairman of the board of directors of Oragenics (Alachua, FL, USA). The retired former chairman and CEO of Nabi Biopharmaceuticals and an Oragenics board member since October 2003, Mr. Gury replaces Jeffrey Hillman, Oragenics' founder and CSO.

ConjuGon (Madison, WI, USA), a startup developing new treatments for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, has appointed Guillermo Herrera to its board of directors. Mr. Herrera is currently a principal of the Rosetta Group, a biotech investment fund, and previously served in senior management positions at Abbott Laboratories.

Ceregene (San Diego) has named Matthias Kurth vice president for medical affairs and Daniel Lee director of clinical operations. Dr. Kurth was most recently involved with neurology clinical trials at Allergan, and Mr. Lee served as a senior clinical research manager at Amgen.

NeuroNova (Stockholm) has announced the appointment of Ulf Ljungberg, most recently vice president of sales and marketing at AstraZeneca, as president and CEO. Dr. Ljungberg replaces Anders Haegerstrand, who assumes the position of vice president and CSO.

Michael J. Manyak has joined Cytogen (Princeton, NJ, USA) as vice president of medical affairs. Dr. Manyak was most recently a professor of urology, microbiology and tropical medicine at The George Washington University Medical Center, where he was also chairman of the Department of Urology. He has worked with Cytogen as a clinical investigator and medical advisor for over a decade.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has appointed Kerry Reinertsen as vice president of corporate and business development. Dr. Reinertsen has spent the past eight years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, most recently as senior director of product business development.

Marc Rivière has been named executive vice president of clinical development at Caprion Pharmaceuticals (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Dr. Rivière most recently served as chief medical officer for Bioniche Life Sciences, and before that, was vice president of clinical affairs for Æterna Laboratories.

Biogen Idec (Cambridge, MA, USA) COO William R. Rohn will retire from the company effective January 31. Mr. Rohn's responsibilities will be assumed by James C. Mullen, Biogen Idec's CEO, and other members of the senior management team. Prior to the merger of IDEC Pharmaceuticals and Biogen, Mr. Rohn was president and COO of IDEC. He is currently on the board of directors of Pharmacyclics and Cerus.

Carol Ann Toth has been named vice president of R&D at Anika Therapeutics (Woburn, MA, USA). Dr. Toth most recently held the same position at Stryker Biotech.

Human Genome Sciences (Rockville, MD, USA) has announced the appointment of H. Thomas Watkins as CEO and a member of the company's board of directors. He succeeds William Haseltine, founder and former chairman and CEO who retired from the company in October 2004. Mr. Watkins most recently served as president of TAP Pharmaceutical Products. He joined Abbott Laboratories in 1985, rising to the position of corporate vice president in 1996, and vice president of Abbott HealthSystems in 1998. Later that year, Mr. Watkins was appointed president of TAP, which is jointly owned by Abbott and Takeda Pharmaceutical.