Startup Vicebio has emerged from stealth mode, announcing the appointment of Emmanuel Hanon (photo) as CEO. Hanon is the former head of vaccines R&D at GlaxoSmithKline.

“I am delighted to join Vicebio as we pursue this novel approach to vaccine development targeting life-threatening respiratory viruses,” said Hanon. “I am impressed and grateful for the technology development and clinical data already generated by University of Queensland research team to advance the technology platform and am honored to be taking their invention forward. I am truly excited about our molecular clamp technology, which is able to lock viral surface proteins into the optimal conformation with high immunogenicity, stability and manufacturing productivity, all crucial characteristics for vaccines that are difficult to obtain and to combine.”

Septerna has announced the additions of Liz Bhatt as COO and Ran Xiao as vice president of finance and business operations. Bhatt was previously chief business and strategy officer at Applied Molecular Transport and Xiao was most recently vice president of finance and corporate controller at Ambys Medicines.

George Cardoza has been appointed CEO and a member of the board of liquid biopsy developer AccuraGen. He succeeds CEO and cofounder Kang Ying, who will remain chairman of the board. Cardoza previously served as CFO, president of the pharma services division, COO and president of laboratory operations at NeoGenomics.

PacBio has named Jeff Eidel chief commercial officer. Eidel joins PacBio from Cradle Genomics, where he was most recently CEO after joining the company in 2019 as COO. Before Cradle Genomics, he was head of corporate and business development at Illumina.

Catherine J. Mackey has been appointed to the board of directors of Voyager Therapeutics. Mackey has over 30 years of operational experience highlighted by her tenure as senior vice president, global research and development for Pfizer.

Affini-T Therapeutics has named Dirk Nagorsen chief medical officer. Nagorsen previously served as vice president early development and therapeutic area head, hematology and oncology early development at Amgen. Before joining Amgen, he served as a senior medical director at Micromet until its acquisition by Amgen in 2012.

Rocket Pharmaceuticals has named Mayo Pujols chief technical officer and executive vice president. Pujols brings nearly 30 years of industry experience, most recently serving as CEO of Andelyn Biosciences. Previously, he was head of global cell and gene technical development and manufacturing for Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Amit Rakhit has been appointed president and CEO of Flare Therapeutics, succeeding interim CEO Abbie Celniker, who will continue to serve as chair of the board of directors. Rakhit has over two decades of life sciences leadership experience, most recently as CEO of Sporos BioVentures and president and chief medical officer of Ovid Therapeutics.

Roche has announced that Thomas Schinecker will be appointed CEO on 15 March 2023, succeeding Severin Schwan. Schinecker has served as CEO of the company’s diagnostics division since 2019. Schwan will replace Christoph Franz as chairman. Franz will not seek reelection to the board.

Thomas Schlumpberger has been named CEO and a member of the board of directors of Nanomix. He most recently served as CEO of Pictor and previously held positions at Epocal, Singulex, Anixa, Invitae, Inivata and Affymetrix.

London-based immunotherapy company Centauri Therapeutics has announced the appointments of Jennifer Schneider as CEO, Helen Bright as vice president of R&D and David Roblin as chair of the board of directors. Schneider joins Centauri with 20 years’ experience working with life science companies, most recently serving as executive officer for the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership, North America. Bright was most recently head of infection biology at Medicines Discovery Catapult. Roblin, who has held senior leadership positions for over 20 years at Bayer and Pfizer, is currently chair of scientific translation at the Francis Crick Institute.

Paul Sekhri has been appointed president, CEO and a member of the board of directors of clinical-stage vTv Therapeutics. Rich Nelson, who had been serving as interim CEO, will continue as executive vice president, corporate development. Sekhri brings nearly 30 years of healthcare experience, including serving as president and CEO of eGenesis, Lycera and Cerimon Pharmaceuticals. He is currently a director at Ipsen, Compugen, Pharming, Veeva Systems, Longboard, Spring Discovery and eGenesis.

Generate Biomedicines has announced the appointment of Alexandra Snyder as chief medical officer. Snyder was most recently a principal at Two River, where she set the translational and clinical strategy and execution for the private equity firm’s portfolio of biotech companies. Previously, she was head of translational oncology at Merck.

HotSpot Therapeutics has named Paul Thibodeau chief business officer. Thibodeau brings nearly 20 years of business development experience in the biopharma industry. He joins HotSpot from Novartis, where he most recently led mergers and acquisitions transactions across all of Novartis’s therapeutic areas.

Montreal-based Find Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Paul F. Truex to its board of directors. Truex will serve as chairman, replacing Laurence Rulleau, who will remain as a board director. Currently the chairman and CEO of Thryv Therapeutics, Truex brings three decades of experience in the pharma industry.