Fred G. Beyerlein has been appointed to serve as president, chief executive officer, and a member of the board of directors of Rubicon Genomics (Ann Arbor, MI), replacing Thomas A. Collet. Mr. Beyerlein joined Rubicon as senior vice president in June 2001, and prior to that, served as chief operating officer and as director of sales and marketing at NSC Technologies.

Thomas C. Chesterman has joined Aradigm (Hayward, CA) as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He joins the company from Bio-Rad Laboratories, where he served as vice president and CFO.

Conforma Therapeutics (San Diego, CA) has announced the appointment of Stuart Collinson as chairman of its board of directors. Dr. Collinson, a partner at Forward Ventures since March 2002, will replace Ivor Royston, who has represented Forward Ventures on the Conforma board since they led the company's first operational round of financing in January 2001. Dr. Collinson was formerly chairman, CEO, and president of Aurora Biosciences.

Synaptic Pharmaceutical (Paramus, NJ) has announced that Errol de Souza has been appointed president and CEO and will join the board of directors. He succeeds Kathleen P. Mullinix, who has resigned from her roles as president, CEO, and director. Most recently, Dr. de Souza was senior vice president and site head, US drug innovation and approval at Aventis, and from 1992 to 1998, he was co-founder, executive vice president of R&D, and director of Neurocrine Biosciences.

William E. Aliski

Transkaryotic Therapies (TKT; Cambridge, MA) has announced the appointment of John B. Edwards as vice president, marketing, and the promotion of William E. Aliski as vice president, commercial operations. Mr. Edwards most recently served as assistant vice president, global strategic marketing at Wyeth. Mr. Aliski joined TKT in 1999 as vice president, health services. In addition, The company also announced that William H. Pursley has resigned as senior vice president, commercial operations to become CEO of a privately held biotechnology company, and Linda H. Pettingell has been appointed to the newly created position of vice president, human resources.

Jaap Goudsmit has succeeded Ton Logtenberg as chief scientific officer at Crucell (Leiden, The Netherlands). Dr. Goudsmit, most recently Crucell's chief medical officer, will be responsible for the company's R&D activities. He is co-founder of both IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) and EuroVac, the European Union AIDS vaccine effort.

Corgentech (Palo Alto, CA) has named James Z. Huang vice president of marketing and business development. Previously, he served as vice president of business development and commercial operations at Tularik.

Matthew Murphy has joined Nanosys (Palo Alto, CA) as vice president of intellectual property. He joins the company from Caliper Technologies, where he held the same title.

Medarex (Princeton, NJ) has named Geoffrey M. Nichol as senior vice president, product development. Most recently Dr. Nichol held the positions of head, global medical marketing excellence, and head, global project management at Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Philippe Poncet has been named chief financial officer at Transgene (Strasbourg, France). Mr. Poncet joins the company from Aventis CropScience, where he had served as the coordinator for mergers and acquisitions since 1999.

Aviva Biosciences (San Diego, CA) has appointed Norrie Russell as president and CEO, succeeding Peter Wilding, who was appointed as chairman of the board of directors. Charles Sie, who has been Aviva's founding chairman since 1999, will continue to serve on the company's board. Prior to joining Aviva, Dr. Russell was president and CEO of Lynx Therapeutics.

Tim Shannon, former senior vice president of global medical development at Bayer, has joined CuraGen (New Haven, CT) as senior vice president of research and development and chief medical officer.

ViaCell (Boston, MA) has announced the elections of Jan van Heek and Jim Tullis to the company's board of directors. Mr. van Heek is executive vice president of Genzyme, and Mr. Tullis is the founder and CEO of Tullis-Dickerson & Co., a healthcare venture capital firm.

Migragen (Tübingen, Germany) has announced the appointment of Lucio A.A. van Rooijen as president and CEO. Dr. van Rooijen was most recently vice president, business development and board member of Xzillion, a proteomics solution provider which was part of the Aventis group.