Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Andrew D. Miller (right) as senior vice president and chief financial officer beginning on 14 April 2008. He replaces John Sluis, who retired from Cepheid at the end of 2007. Miller, who assumes responsibility for Cepheid's worldwide financial operations and investor relations, joins the company from Autodesk, where he served as vice president and chief accounting officer and led the Nasdaq-listed software company's worldwide accounting, compliance, SEC reporting, and Sarbanes-Oxley 404 activities.

Before joining Autodesk, Miller was senior vice president and CFO for MarketFirst Software, a provider of enterprise marketing automation software; vice president of worldwide finance for Cadence Design Systems; and vice president of finance and corporate controller for Adaptive Broadband Corp.

Elisabeth Allison has been named to the board of directors of Helicos BioSciences (Cambridge, MA, USA). She is a partner at ANZI Partners, a business consulting firm specializing in the development and negotiation of joint ventures, strategic alliances and broad-based licensing agreements.

Gerald D. Brennan, Jr., Aastrom Biosciences' (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) vice president, administrative and financial operations and CFO, has announced his intention to retire from the company. CEO George Dunbar has assumed the role of interim CFO pending completion of a search for Brennan's successor.

Calistoga Pharmaceuticals (Seattle) has appointed R. Lee Douglas to its board of directors. Douglas has over 22 years of successful biotechnology operating and management experience with emphasis on building and developing companies, including business development, strategic portfolio management and integration of company mergers and acquisitions.

AVI BioPharma's (Portland, OR, USA) board of directors has named Leslie Hudson as CEO and a member of the board. He succeeds K. Michael Forrest, who has served as interim CEO since March 2007. Mr. Forrest will remain on the board of directors.

Nektar Therapeutics (San Carlos, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Hoyoung Huh to its board of directors. He will step down as Nektar's chief operating officer and head of the PEGylation business unit, having accepted the position of president and CEO at BiPar Sciences.

Syntaxin (Oxford, UK) has appointed Richard Jones as chief medical officer and Nicola Thompson as head of cell biology. Jones has over 25 years of global pharma industry experience, most recently serving as senior vice president, experimental medicine, clinical and regulatory affairs at Aspreva Pharmaceuticals. Before joining Syntaxin, Thompson worked at GSK as head of allergic mechanism and target discovery.

Sergej Kiprijanov has been named vice president of discovery research and preclinical development at Affitech (Oslo). Most recently CSO of Novoplant, a German plant biotech company developing antibodies for oral applications, Kiprijanov was also head of research with Affimed Therapeutics.

Neurogen (Ranford, CT, USA) has announced that John LaMattina, former head of global R&D at Pfizer, has been appointed to the company's board of directors.

Regulus Therapeutics (Carlsbad, CA, USA), a joint venture between Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Isis Pharmaceuticals, has announced the appointment of Peter S. Linsley as chief scientific officer. Linsley was most recently executive director of cancer biology at Merck Research Laboratories and previously vice president of R&D at Rosetta Inpharmatics.

Mersana (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Timothy B. Lowinger as chief scientific officer. Lowinger has over 15 years of experience in the pharma industry, most recently as vice president of chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at Angiotech Pharmaceuticals.

Ariad Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has announced the promotion of Richard W. Pascoe to the new position of COO. He was previously chief commercial officer. In addition, the role of Timothy P. Clackson has been expanded from chief scientific officer to include all of research, preclinical development and applied sciences.

Michael A. Patane has been promoted to chief scientific officer at EyeGate Pharma (Waltham, MA). Patane joined EyeGate in 2007 as vice president, R&D. He was previously executive director, global discovery chemistry, at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals (Aliso Viejo, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of J. Michael Pearson as CEO following the resignation of Timothy C. Tyson as president, CEO and a director of the company. In addition, Robert A. Ingram will step down as Valeant's current chairman of the board, but will remain on the board as the lead director. Pearson will assume the role of chairman of the board of directors, effective immediately. Prior to Valeant, he was a director at McKinsey & Company.

Gary A. Shangold has been appointed chief medical officer of Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals (Newport, KY, USA). He has served in senior regulatory and clinical development roles at Johnson & Johnson, the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Serono Laboratories. In addition, Xanodyne has named Timothy Arendt, previously senior vice president and general manager of Valeant Pharmaceuticals' US pharmaceuticals division, as vice president of sales.

Privately held KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (Palo Alto, CA, USA) has named two additions to its senior management team: Carol Stratford, previously site head of Pfizer's Rinat Laboratories facility, joins KaloBios as general counsel and head of intellectual property and Charles Democko, previously vice president, regulatory affairs and development operations at Novacea, joins the company as vice president, regulatory affairs and quality.