PolyTherics (London) has announced the appointment of Ken Cunningham (below, right) as chairman of the company's board of directors. Mike Hayes, the current nonexecutive chairman, will continue as a nonexecutive director. Cunningham has over 20 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently CEO of SkyePharma and previously served as CEO of Arakis, vice president, European Affairs at Alza and vice president, clinical development at Sequus. He is also a nonexecutive director of Xention.

PolyTherics CEO Keith Powell says, “We are delighted that Ken has agreed to join PolyTherics as its chairman and we are sure that his broad experience of development and business will help successfully steer the company to the next stage of its evolution. I would like to thank Mike for his dedication to the company and am pleased that we will continue to benefit from his invaluable insights.”

Genmab (Copenhagen) has announced that its cofounder, Lisa N. Drakeman, has retired from her position as CEO and member of the board of directors of the company. She is succeeded by Jan G.J. van de Winkel, Genmab's former president of R&D and CSO. Under Drakeman's leadership, Genmab raised over $1 billion in capital, completed the largest initial public offering of any biotech company in Europe, received the annual James D. Watson Helix Award as the best international biotech company in 2005 and received regulatory approval in the United States and Europe for its chronic lymphocytic leukemia treatment, Arzerra.

Myriad Genetics (Salt Lake City) has elected Heiner Dreismann to its board of directors. Dreismann has more than 24 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including stints as president and CEO of Roche Molecular Systems and head of global business development of Roche Diagnostics.

Benitec (Melbourne) has announced the appointment of Peter French as CEO, replacing Sue MacLeman. French has been Benitec's CSO since August 2009.

StemCells (Palo Alto, CA, USA) has named R. Scott Greer to its board of directors. Greer has more than 25 years of life sciences and financial services industry experience and is currently a principal and managing director of Numenor Ventures, which he founded in 2002, and chairman of Acologix. He also serves on the boards of Nektar Therapeutics and BAROnova. He was previously a founder, CEO and chairman of Abgenix, and senior vice president, corporate development and CFO of Cell Genesys.

Genzyme (Cambridge, MA, USA) agreed to settle its proxy contest with activist investor Carl C. Icahn and his affiliated private investment funds. Under the agreement, the Icahn funds withdrew its slate of four nominees for Genzyme's board and voted in favor of the company's board slate. In return, Genzyme appointed two of Icahn's nominees, Steven Burakoff and Eric Ende, to serve as directors. Burakoff is professor of medicine, hematology and medical oncology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and director of the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Ende is a former biotech analyst with Merrill Lynch. In addition, Dennis M. Fenton, a 25-year veteran of Amgen, was also appointed as a director. Fenton was executive vice president of operations when he retired from Amgen in 2008. The new additions bring Genzyme's board from 10 to 13 members.

Erwan Martin has been named CFO and Emmanuel Conseiller has been appointed vice president, R&D of Genomic Vision (Paris). Before joining the company, Martin served as CFO and an executive board member at Cytomics Pharmaceuticals. Conseiller joined Genomic Vision in October 2009 after serving as a senior manager at Sanofi-Aventis from 1992 to 2009.

Lukas Utiger, previously COO of Lonza Life Science Ingredients (Basel), has been named as COO of Lonza Bioscience, located in Walkersville, Maryland, USA. He replaces Anja Fiedler who resigned due to personal health reasons. Stefan Borgas, CEO of Lonza Life Science Ingredients, will take over Utiger's responsibilities until a successor is named.

Following his recent appointment as CEO of Ark Therapeutics Group (London), Martyn Williams has stepped down from the roles of CFO and company secretary. Succeeding him are David Bowyer as CFO and Edward Bliss as secretary. Bowyer joined Ark in 2004 and was promoted to group financial controller in 2008. Bliss joined Ark from law firm Covington & Burling in 2005 and also holds the post of general counsel.

Gentris (Morrisville, NC, USA) has named Rick Williams as CEO and a member of the board of directors. Working for the past three years at The Hamner Institutes, Williams set up international academic partnerships, a business accelerator and the Hamner-China Biosciences Center. Additionally, he helped to establish the Hamner-University of North Carolina Institute for Drug Safety Sciences as well as the Drug Discovery Center of Innovation, a virtual drug discovery network funded by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Jack L. Wyszomierski has been elected to the board of directors of Athersys (Cleveland). From 2004 to 2009, Wyszomierski served as executive vice president and CFO of VWR International. From 1982 to 2004, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Schering-Plough, culminating with his appointment as executive vice president and CFO in 1996. Two Athersys directors, Jordan S. Davis and William C. Mulligan, did not stand for re-election.

Privately held Cyntellect (San Diego) has appointed Saiid Zarrabian as president and CEO, replacing Fred Koller, who has assumed the position of chief technology officer. Zarrabian has experience spanning the biotech, pharma and chemical sectors, previously serving as president and COO of Synomyx, COO of Pharmacopeia and president and COO of Molecular Simulations. He currently serves on the boards of Ambit Biosciences and eMolecules.