Innate Pharma (Marseille, France) has announced the appointment of Patrick Squiban as chief medical officer. Dr. Squiban joins the company from Transgene, where he served as director of medical affairs for Europe and then as vice president, medical and regulatory affairs. Before Transgene, Dr. Squiban worked for Novo Nordisk as medical director of Novo Nordisk France and vice president, pharmacology and medical affairs for Zymogenetics, at the time a US subsidiary of Novo Nordisk.

Innate Pharma CEO Hervé Brailly called Dr. Squiban's appointment an important milestone for the company, whose most advanced program, a new chemical entity agonist of the major NCL subset (g9d2 T cells) is moving to phase 2 clinical trials in metastatic renal cell carcinoma, for which it was granted orphan designation in Europe.

Protiveris (Rockville, MD, USA) has named Julian Abery as vice president, business development. Most recently, Mr. Abery held the position of vice president and head of the business unit for Biacore.

Ted Danse has been appointed president and CEO of Neurotech (Lincoln, RI, USA). Mr. Danse previously served as president and CEO of ISTA Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for taking the company public in 2000. He has also served as a director on the boards of Quest Vision Technologies and Vision Solutions Technologies.

Christopher D. Earl has been appointed president, CEO and director of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH), a collaboration founded by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to focus the resources of the biotech industry on urgent medical challenges in the developing world. Dr. Earl, a leading venture capitalist and entrepreneur, was previously managing director at the Perseus-Soros BioPharmaceutical Fund.

Thomas Taapken has been appointed chief financial officer of privately held Elbion (Radebeul, Germany). Dr. Taapken previously spent three years as a partner at Deutsche Venture Capital's life science team and as a member of Elbion's supervisory board. Prior to his position at DVC, he worked for eight years at Sanofi-Aventis in the areas of research, corporate development and venture capital.

Corinne H. Lyle has been appointed to the board of directors at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Emeryville, CA, USA), and will serve as the chairman of its audit committee. Ms. Lyle is corporate vice president and CFO of Edwards Lifesciences, and previously served as vice president and CFO of Tularik. In addition, Onyx announced that Nicole Vitullo, who has served as a member of the board since 1998, has resigned.

AgraQuest (Davis, CA, USA) has named Jonathan Margolis as senior vice president of R&D. Before joining the company, Dr. Margolis was senior director of chemical genetics at Exelixis. Denise Manker, who led R&D efforts at AgraQuest over the past ten years, will now serve as vice president of global product development.

Oxford Immunotec (Oxford, UK) has announced the appointment of Ian Miscampbell as chief financial officer. Mr. Miscampbell has over 15 years experience in senior financial positions and joins Oxford Immunotec from Microscience Holdings, where he was finance director. Previously, he served as chief operating officer and finance director of KS Biomedix Holdings.

ConjuChem (Montreal, PQ, Canada) has announced Mark D. Perrin as its new president and CEO. Outgoing president and interim CEO Jacques Lapointe will remain as executive chairman. Mr. Perrin most recently served as executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Orphan Medical, and was previously executive vice president of commercial operations at COR Therapeutics.

London-based life sciences investment group Abingworth Management has appointed David Pinniger as a principal and analyst. Mr. Pinniger joins Abingworth from Morgan Stanley, where he was a sell-side equity analyst in the European healthcare team.

SciClone Pharmaceuticals (San Mateo, CA, USA) has named Israel Rios as chief medical officer. Dr. Rios joins SciClone from Dendreon, where he was vice president of clinical affairs.

Howard B. Rosen has been elected to the board of directors at CoTherix (S. San Francisco, CA, USA). Mr. Rosen is currently vice president, commercial strategy for Gilead Sciences, and is on the board of Pharsight Corporation. Before joining Gilead, Mr. Rosen spent ten years at ALZA, where he most recently served as president.

By mutual agreement with the board of directors, Jay M. Short has resigned from his position as president, CEO and a member of the board of Diversa (San Diego, CA, USA). Dr. Short was a cofounder of Diversa in 1994, and guided the company during its transition from a startup organization to a public company. Edward T. Shonsey, Diversa's executive vice president of internal development, has been appointed CEO on an interim basis.

Robert C. Young, president of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, has been named to the board of directors of Human Genome Sciences (Rockville, MD, USA). Dr. Young is a medical oncologist and currently chairman of the board of scientific advisors of the National Cancer Institute. In addition, he is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Cancer Society and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society.