EMD Serono (Rockland, MA, USA) has named Howard Mayer chief medical officer for the US organization, with responsibilities including oversight of the US medical affairs group, US medical operations, US medical information, US product surveillance and quality assurance, and US regulatory affairs. Mayer joins the company from Pfizer's global R&D group, where he served as global virology worldwide clinical development and medical affairs disease area leader, focused on HIV and hepatitis. He previously worked in the infectious diseases clinical research group at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

Rosetta Genomics (Rehovot, Israel and Philadelphia) has named Kenneth A. Berlin president and CEO. He most recently served as worldwide general manager at Veridex, a Johnson & Johnson company. Berlin joined Johnson & Johnson in 1994, holding positions of increasing responsibility, including vice president, licensing and new business development in the pharmaceuticals group from 2001 to 2004 and worldwide vice president, franchise development, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics from 2004 to 2007.

Iris International (Chatsworth, CA, USA) has appointed Lawrence J. Blecka as vice president, R&D. From 1999 to 2009, he was group engineering manager for the BioPlex division of Bio-Rad Laboratories. Previously he served as corporate vice president, product development for Biocircuits.

Dynavax Technologies (Berkeley, CA, USA) has named Francis R. Cano to the company's board of directors. Cano is president and founder of Cano Biotech, a consulting firm. Previously, he served as president and COO for Aviron.

CellCyte Genetics (Eastgate, WA, USA) has appointed Douglas Cerretti CSO and director of business development. Cerretti served in positions ranging from staff scientist through scientific director at Immunex from 1984 to 2002, and after Immunex's acquisition in 2002, with Amgen until his retirement in 2007. He has since been involved with CellCyte as an independent consultant, helping the company refine its interim operating plan.

ExonHit Therapeutics (Paris) has announced the appointment of Hervé Duchesne de Lamotte as CFO. He brings over 25 years of international financial experience to ExonHit, including 10 years in the biotech industry. He served as CFO of the IDM Group in France, Canada and the United States, and was subsequently appointed COO, France, at IDM Paris from 2006 to 2008. Most recently, he managed Cirrus Finance Management, a consultancy firm specializing in business and organizational strategies.

John LaMattina has joined PureTech Ventures (Boston) as a senior partner and member of the board of directors. He was formerly president of Pfizer global R&D and senior vice president at Pfizer, and currently serves on the board of directors of Human Genome Sciences and Neurogen. In addition, PureTech has announced the promotions of Eric Elenko and Steve Muniz to partner. Elenko joined PureTech in 2005 from McKinsey & Company, and Muniz was a partner in the corporate department of Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge before joining PureTech in 2007.

Mirna Therapeutics (Austin, TX, USA) has named Paul Lammers president, CEO and member of the board of directors. Prior to joining Mirna, Lammers was most recently president of Repros Therapeutics. He also served for 6 years as chief medical officer for EMD Serono.

Cytomedix (Rockville, MD, USA) has announced the appointment of Craig B. Mendelsohn to the company's board of directors, increasing the number of board members to seven. Mendelsohn is vice president and deputy general counsel for the American Red Cross and brings more than 15 years of healthcare industry experience as a regulatory attorney and medical director in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries.

Hollings C. Renton has been appointed to the position of chairman of the board of directors at Affymax (Palo Alto, CA, USA), replacing Nick Galakatos, who served as lead board member since the company's initial public offering in 2006 and who will be resigning from the board at the end of 2009. Prior to joining Affymax's board in June 2009, Renton served as chairman of Onyx Pharmaceuticals from 2000 to 2008, where he also served as president and CEO from 1993 and as a director from 1992. Renton was previously president and COO officer of Chiron and CFO of Cetus.

Tim Rothwell, former chairman of Sanofi-Aventis US, has been appointed to Emisphere Technologies' (Cedar Knolls, NJ, USA) board of directors, filling the vacancy created by Franklin Berger's recent resignation from the board.

International Stem Cell Corporation (Oceanside, CA, USA) has announced the appointments of current board member and executive vice president Andrey Semechkin as CEO and Brian Lundstrom as president. Outgoing CEO Kenneth Aldrich will remain as chairman of the board and Jeffrey Janus will remain as senior vice president of ISCO and CEO of its subsidiary, Lifeline Cell Technology. Semechkin has more than 20 years of business experience, and has been an investor and advisor to ISCO since 2008.

Amarin (Dublin) has named John F. Thero as the company's CFO. Thero has more than 20 years of senior financial and operational management experience, most recently as CFO at ViaCell.

Jaye Thompson has been elected to the board of directors of Repros Therapeutics (The Woodlands, TX, USA), and as a member of the board's audit committee. Thompson was president and founder of Synergos, a full-service contract research organization acquired by inVentiv Health as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2006. In addition, Repros has announced that Nola E. Masterson, a board member since 2004, has been appointed as chair of the board of directors, effective immediately, and that Mark Lappe, the current chair, has resigned from the board, effective immediately, for personal reasons.

Stefan Wohlfeil has been promoted from chief medical officer of TRIN Pharma (Appenzell, Switzerland) to CEO. Rudolf Reiter, who previously held the position of CEO in addition to his role as CEO of Ergonex, will now focus entirely on his responsibility for Ergonex.