Hans Kast was elected to serve as chairman of EuropaBio (Brussels) at its annual general assembly last month. He succeeds Feike Sijbesma, who will continue to serve on the EuropaBio board. Dr. Kast is currently president and CEO of Ludwigshafen, Germany–based BASF Plant Science, and has been with the company for 25 years. In his acceptance speech, he called biotechnology “a real opportunity to bring economic growth and jobs to Europe,” and outlined three goals: to secure the development of emerging and maturing biotech companies, to improve market access for biotech products, and to develop a coherent policy in support of biotechnology across the European Union.

At the meeting, EuropaBio members also elected chairs for its five councils, which oversee the association's sector activities: Andrea Rappagliosi of Serono (health care), Jack Huttner of Genencor/Danisco (industrial biotechnology), Bayer CropScience's Bernward Garthoff (agri-food), Philippe Pouletty of France Biotech (emerging enterprises) and the UK BioIndustry Association's Aisling Burnand (national associations).

Ciphergen Biosystems (Fremont, CA, USA) has named James S. Burns, president and CEO of EntreMed, to Ciphergen's board of directors. Prior to joining EntreMed in June 2004, Mr. Burns cofounded and served as president and executive vice president of MedPointe, a specialty pharmaceutical company. From 1993–1999, he served as founder, chairman, president and CEO of Osiris Therapeutics.

James Clough has been named commercial director at Oxford Gene Technology (Oxford, UK). Mr. Clough was formerly vice president and general manager of European operations for Affymetrix, and at GE Healthcare (formerly Amersham Biosciences) he was president of Amersham Biosciences Europe and vice president of e-business.

Pharmacyclics (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has named Geoffrey Cooper as senior vice president, business development. Dr. Cooper joins the company from OSI Pharmaceuticals, where he was most recently vice president of corporate development.

TransMolecular (Birmingham, AL, USA) has announced the appointment of E. Michael Egan as CEO. Mr. Egan served most recently as senior vice president of commercial development for GenVec, and previously as senior vice president, corporate development and COO of Diacrin.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (Palo Alto, CA, USA) has named Esther Kepplinger as director of patent operations; she will be based in the firm's Reston, Virginia office. Ms. Kepplinger was formerly deputy commissioner for patent operations for the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

BioAlliance Pharma (Paris) has announced the appointment of Piers Morgan as chief financial officer. Mr. Morgan was most recently finance director at Arrow Therapeutics, and previously held investment banking positions at Ernst & Young and Close Brothers Corporate Finance.

John D. Nieland has been appointed vice president, preclinical research at Borean Pharma (Aarhus, Denmark). Dr. Nieland previously held the positions of director of research and group leader of immunology at MediGene.

London-based Lipoxen Technologies has elected Sir Brian Richards as nonexecutive chairman of the board. Sir Brian cofounded British Biotechnology in 1986 and served as executive chairman until 1994. He subsequently held nonexecutive chairmanships or directorships in several biopharmaceutical companies, including Peptide Therapeutics (later Acambis), Oxford Biomedica and CeNeS. Currently, Sir Brian chairs the boards of Alizyme and Cozart.

Alastair Riddell has been named CEO of Paradigm Therapeutics (Cambridge Science Park, UK). Dr. Riddell was formerly the CEO and main board member of Pharmagene for seven years. He previously directed the medical departments of Celltech and Centocor Europe. He currently serves as deputy chairman of the UK's BioIndustry Association (BIA).

Iken Tissue Therapeutics (San Francisco) has announced the appointment of Thomas Schreck as CEO. Mr. Schreck most recently served as CFO and director of DURECT, an emerging specialty pharmaceutical company he cofounded in 1998. He has also held various investment banking positions at firms including Montgomery Securities and Manufacturers Hanover Ltd. Last month, Iken filed an investigational new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration for Anginera, its lead product for treating chronic cardiovascular disease and congestive heart failure.

Joao Siffert has been appointed to the position of vice president, clinical research and development at Avera Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA, USA). He joins the company from Pfizer, where he served as medical director. Before joining Pfizer, Dr. Siffert was director of Beth Israel Medical Center's adult neuro-oncology program.

Henry Simon has been appointed nonexecutive chairman of the board of directors of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals (New York). Mr. Simon has been a director since July 2001 and was chairman of Eyetech's audit committee. He is a senior leader at Schroder Ventures Life Sciences, and has served on the boards of such companies as Leica Microsystems, Gyros, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Chiroscience.

Steffan Strömberg

NicOx (Sophia Antipolis, France) has named Staffan Strömberg vice president of drug development. Mr. Strömberg's last position was director of neuroscience portfolio optimization at AstraZeneca. In addition, the company announced the appointments of Stefan Holmström as director of project management and Philippe Deram as quality assurance manager.