Thrive Earlier Detection has announced the appointment of Matt Franklin (photo) as chief commercial officer. In addition, Sarah Larson, a partner and chief human resources officer at Third Rock Ventures, has joined Thrive’s board of directors, and Semi Trotto has been promoted to chief people officer. Franklin joins the company with over 20 years of experience in the diagnostics, life sciences and technology industries. He was most recently chief business officer at ArcherDx.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Matt and Sarah, two esteemed industry experts, to our growing team, as well as announce Semi’s well-deserved promotion. Each one of these leaders brings extensive experience in building innovative companies and will have an invaluable impact on advancing our mission to incorporate earlier cancer detection into routine medical care,” said Thrive CEO David J. Daly.

Venture capital firm Arix Bioscience has named Naseem Amin, hitherto a non-executive member of the board and previously a venture partner at Advent Life Sciences, as executive chairman. In addition, Arix cofounder and chairman Jonathan Peacock and non-executive director Art Pappas have stepped down from the company’s board of directors, and Joe Anderson, cofounder and CEO of Arix, has left the company.

RubrYc Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Ramesh Baliga as CSO. Baliga was previously vice president of discovery biology at IGM Biosciences. Before IGM Biosciences, he was founder and CSO of Extend Biopharma.

Mauro Ferrari, who took office as president of the European Research Council at the beginning of this year, submitted his resignation on 7 April. In a letter printed by the Financial Times, Ferrari said he pushed unsuccessfully to have the ERC, which focuses on funding ‘bottom-up’ research, launch a special funding round for COVID-19 research, and he criticized the European Commission for “a largely uncoordinated cluster of initiatives.” However, sources said the agency’s governing body had previously decided to ask for Ferrari’s resignation for reasons including a belief that he was spending too much time on private, non-ERC activities.

Sofinnova Investments has named Jonathan Leff as an executive partner. Leff most recently served as senior vice president and chief medical officer of Ascendis Pharma and was previously executive vice president, R&D at InterMune.

Marco Londei has been named CEO of Gadeta. He was most recently chief medical officer and chief development officer of AnaptysBio.

Gail McIntyre has been named CEO of Aravive, succeeding Rekha Hemrajani. McIntyre joined Aravive in 2016 and was most recently the company’s CSO. In addition, the company has appointed Fred Eshelman, founder of Eshelman Venture, as chairman of the board. Jay Shepard, Srinivas Akkaraju and Robert Hoffman have all resigned from the board of directors.

Elizabeth Mily has been named to Bristol-Myers Squibb’s executive committee as chief of the strategy and business development group. She joins the company from Barclays, where she chaired the global life sciences group. She replaces Charles Bancroft, who had served on an interim basis since the departure of Paul Biondi, who in turn left BMS in December 2019 to join venture firm Flagship Pioneering as an executive partner.

Christopher K. Mirabelli has stepped down from his role as president and CEO of Leap Therapeutics. He will continue to serve as chairman of the board of directors. Douglas E. Onsi will take on the position of president and CEO while maintaining his current role as Leap’s CFO. Onsi will also serve as a director. In addition, Leap has announced that John Littlechild has stepped down as a director; Cynthia Sirard, vice president of clinical R&D, has been promoted to chief medical officer; and Mark O’Mahony, vice president of manufacturing, has been promoted to chief manufacturing officer.

Oncoceutics has announced that cofounder, CEO and member of the board of directors Wolfgang Oster has left the company as part of a leadership change. Raymond Wong, a director associated with the company’s lead investor, Spring Mountain Capital, has become chairman; COO Lee Schalop is now CEO; and Josh Allen, senior vice president of R&D, is now CSO.

Frederic Pla has been appointed COO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Pla most recently served in the same capacity at Genomic Health. Previously, he was vice president, corporate business development at Life Technologies.

Immune Regulation has announced the appointment of Jonathan Rigby as CEO and a member of the board of directors. Rigby is the cofounder of Zogenix and was formerly CEO of SteadyMed Therapeutics.

Immunomedics has appointed Harout Semerjian as CEO. Semerjian joins the company from Ipsen, where he served as chief commercial officer and executive vice president. He previously spent 16 years at Novartis Oncology.

Seres Therapeutics has named Lisa von Moltke as executive vice president and chief medical officer. She joins Seres after 5 years at Alkermes, where she most recently had been senior vice president and head of clinical development. She was previously vice president, clinical and exploratory pharmacology at Sanofi and senior director of translational medicine at Takeda.