Takeda fills newly created CFO position

Welcome to this week's roundup of hirings and firings throughout the industry. Please send the good word (or the bad) from your shop to Michael Gibney (email | Twitter) or Emily Mullin (email | Twitter) and we will feature it here at the end of each week.

Takeda fills newly created CFO position

Takeda brought former Sanofi-Aventis finance operative Francois-Xavier Roger into the fold as the Japanese company's CFO, a new position at Takeda. Prior to accepting the position, Roger was CFO at Millicom International Cellular, a telecom company operating in emerging markets, and held the same position at Danone's APAC operations in Singapore. More

Francois-Xavier Roger
Roger joins Takeda as CFO.

Jeffrey A. Duchemin
Duchemin will serve as the new CEO.

Biotech

Harvard Bioscience ($HBIO) has appointed Jeffrey Duchemin as CEO. David Green, who has served as Harvard Bioscience's interim CEO since May 15, resigned and will continue in his capacity as the president of Harvard Bioscience until company completes the spin-off of its regenerative medicine subsidiary. Release

Akebia Therapeutics has appointed John Butler as its president and CEO. Butler was most recently CEO of Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals, and prior to that held several positions at Genzyme, including president of the cardiometabolic and renal division. Release

Andrew Oakley, chief financial officer of Actelion ($ATLN), is stepping down to pursue other responsibilities. He will be replaced by Andre Muller. Oakley has been with the company since 2003. Item

Gregory Perry, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Waltham, MA-based ImmunoGen ($IMGN), is resigning from his position effective Sept. 13. Release

> Compugen ($CGEN) established a scientific advisory board to guide its pipeline program development, bringing aboard medical professionals Charles Drake, Iain McInnes, Antoni Ribas and Howard Soule. Release

> Aesica appointed Bhavesh Kotecha to the company's newly created position of corporate service director. Release

> Pure Bioscience brought on Cliff Wechsler as its executive vice president of sales and Tom Myers as its executive vice president of marketing and product development. Release

> Dr. Alexander van Amerongen joined ACM Global Central Lab as the director of anatomic pathology. Release

Pharma

> Marschall Runge has been elected to Eli Lilly's ($LLY) board of directors. Runge is the executive dean for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's school of medicine. Release

Pharma Manufacturing

French Novasep appointed Christian Thiry as chief financial officer. For the last 12 years, Thiry served as CFO and group executive committee member of Stallergenes. Release