Cytheris (Paris) has announced the appointment of Bertrand Vannier (right) as chief financial officer and Thérèse Croughs (below, right) as chief medical officer. Mr. Vannier has been a consultant, conducting several initial public offerings on Euronext for high-technology companies, and since 2002, he has served as CFO of Unither Pharmaceuticals, a French contract manufacturer.

Dr. Croughs has more than 15 years experience in the pharma industry, holding various positions at Bayer, NovoNordisk and most recently at BioAlliance Pharma, where she was responsible for European medical affairs.

Richard E. Buller has been appointed to the newly created position of vice president, translational medicine at Exelixis (S. San Francisco, CA, USA). Dr. Buller previously held the position of director, oncology medicine development center, clinical development at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and he also served on the steering committee for the GSK-Exelixis oncology collaboration. In his new position, he will play a lead role in building a team of translational medicine scientists who will operate at the interface of research and development at Exelixis.

M. Nixon Ellis, formerly president of Trimeris, has been appointed president and CEO at biotech startup Phase Bioscience (Durham, NC, USA). He replaces Gabriel Cipau, who will serve as executive chairman of the PhaseBio board. Mr. Cipau had served as CEO since June 2005.

Brian M. Gallagher has been elected as a director of Transport Pharmaceuticals (Framingham, MA, USA). Dr. Gallagher is currently president and CEO of Magen Biosciences, and he previously served as president, CEO and chairman of CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals.

Venture capital and merchant banking firm Burrill & Company (San Francisco) has announced the appointment of Ganesh M. Kishore as a managing director. Dr. Kishore will focus on Burrill's activities in Malaysia, India, and the agbiotech, health and wellness, industrial biotech and biofuels sectors, in addition to the firm's general life science focus. He previously served as vice president, science and technology and chief biotechnology officer of DuPont.

Kuros (Zurich) has announced the appointments of Fritz Kunz as chairman of the company board and Edward Currie as COO. Dr. Kunz is currently a board member at Speedel, where he acts as chairman, and SenTec. He was previously CEO and a board member of Institut Straumann. Dr. Currie has 19 years of pharma industry experience, including serving as medical director of the biotech business unit of Hoffmann-La Roche.

Erimos Pharmaceuticals (Raleigh, NC, USA) has named J. Scott Mohrland president and CEO. Dr. Mohrland most recently served as executive vice president for GMP Companies. Prior to that, he spent more than 21 years with Pharmacia, Pharmacia+Upjohn and the Upjohn Company, where he held a number of executive positions, including vice president of scientific, professional and government operations, and vice president of medical operations and scientific affairs. Outgoing Erimos CEO Jeff Khoo will serve as executive vice chairman of the company's board of directors.

ActiveSight (San Diego), a division of Rigaku Americas, has named Vicki Nienaber (right) as CSO. Dr. Nienaber was most recently senior director of lead discovery and crystallography at SGX Pharmaceuticals, and she previously worked at Abbott Laboratories where she was the lead inventor of fragment-based screening, co-inventor of the ACTOR robotic system for automated crystal sample handling and a developer of one of the first automated structure-based drug design laboratories.

Andreas Plückthun has announced his intention to resign from the supervisory board of MorphoSys (Martinsried/Munich, Germany), effective May 16. Prof. Plückthun, who cofounded the company in 1992 and has served on the board since, is stepping down in order to devote time to his academic research programs at the University of Zurich, as well as to pursue other entrepreneurial opportunities. To replace him, MorphoSys' board has proposed the nomination of Walter Blättler, formerly executive vice president, science and technology at ImmunoGen.

Hana Biosciences (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has appointed Leon E. Rosenberg, a director of the company since February 2004, as its nonexecutive chairman. Dr. Rosenberg is the former head of the Pharmaceutical Research Institute at Bristol-Myers Squibb and former dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. He is currently a professor in the Princeton University department of molecular biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Robert B. Stein has been named to Archemix's (Cambridge, MA, USA) board of directors. He brings over 25 years of experience in R&D and business experience to the company, serving from 2003 to 2006 as president of Roche Palo Alto. Dr. Stein also served as president and CSO of Incyte.

Vasogen (Toronto) has announced that COO Christopher Waddick will also assume the title of CFO, replacing Paul Van Damme, who has left the company. Mr. Waddick previously served as Vasogen's CFO from 1997 to 2005 prior to being appointed COO in 2005. In addition, Eldon R. Smith, vice president, scientific affairs, and a member of the board of directors of Vasogen, will assume all responsibilities held by chief medical officer Jay Kleiman, who has chosen to retire. Vasogen announced the management changes to improve organizational efficiencies and help deliver additional cost reductions.