Vivus president steps down, Bayer HealthCare gets new CEO

Chutes and Ladders

Welcome to this week's Chutes and Ladders, our 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.

Vivus CEO Tam steps down

Vivus ($VVUS) President Peter Tam will leave the company on Oct. 12, according to a report from the San Francisco Business Times. He has served in the position since 2009. During his 20 years at Vivus, Tam held various management and leadership roles and oversaw the company's efforts to secure the rights, develop and gain approval for four of its products. More

Vivus
President Peter Tam is leaving the company.


Bayer HealthCare
Olivier Brandicourt has been appointed CEO. 


Pharma

Former Pfizer ($PFE) exec Olivier Brandicourt will join Bayer, where he will serve as the head of its healthcare division beginning Nov. 1, according to a Reuters report. More

After 14 years as CEO at Meda, Anders Lönner is stepping down from the position. The board of directors has named Dr. Jörg-Thomas Dierks as the new CEO. Dierks has been the chief operating officer at Meda since 2005. Release

Shantanu Narayen joined Pfizer's board of directors, serving on both the Corporate Governance Committee and the Science and Technology Committee there. Narayen is a member of the U.S. President's Management Advisory Board and a director of Dell Inc. Release

Ra Pharmaceuticals appointed Pamela Esposito as the company's chief business officer. Most recently, Esposito was senior vice president of strategic planning and business development at Angiochem. Release

K-V Pharmaceutical has appointed Joseph Mahady as chairman of its board of directors. Previously, Mahady served as senior vice president of Wyeth and president of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Release

Biotech

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals ($KERX) has appointed Douglass Laidlaw to the newly created position of director of medical affairs. Laidlaw joins the company from Genzyme/Sanofi ($SNY), where he worked in the Medical Affairs division since 2007, most recently serving as national director, medical science liaisons of the renal division. Release

Nicolai Wagtmann, previously vice president of R&D at Novo Nordisk ($NVO), has joined Innate Pharma as chief scientific officer. Release

Immune Design has appoint Dr. Jan Henrik ter Meulen as chief scientific officer. He previously led R&D efforts at Merck ($MRK), Crucell Holland and Etna Biotech. Release

Jerry Parrott, previously of Human Genome Sciences, has been appointed president and CEO of BioMarker Strategies. Release

Cellular Biomedicine Group has promoted Dr. Wei (William) Cao to CEO. Cao will replace current Chairman and CEO Dr. Wen Tao (Steve) Liu, who is stepping down as CEO but will remain on the company's board of directors. Release

Transgenomic announced that Paul Kinnon would replace Craig J. Tuttle as the company's president and CEO. Release

Jeremy Yee resigned his position as nonexecutive director and member of the compensation committee at China Cord Blood Corporation, which is the country's leading provider of cord blood collection, lab testing, hematopoietic stem cell processing and stem cell storage services. Release

Alkermes ($ALKS) appointed Dr. Srdjan (Serge) Stankovic as senior vice president of clinical development and medical affairs and Peter Norman as vice president of government affairs and policy. Release

Seattle Genetics ($SGEN) appointed Dr. Jonathan Drachman as the company's chief medical officer and executive vice president of research and development. Release

> The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society today announced the appointment of Dr. Lee Greenberger as chief scientific officer. Most recently, Greenberger served as global head of search and diligence for oncology and immunology at Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY). Release

Kevin Sarney has joined Avaxia Biologics as vice president of finance and administration. Sarney has experience as a consultant for biotech and medical device companies and was the corporate controller and principal accounting officer of Nitromed. Release

Soligenix ($SNGX) has appointed Oreola Donini as its vice president of preclinical research and development. Donini is a co-inventor and leader of the SGX94 innate defense regulator technology, developed by Inimex Pharmaceuticals and acquired by Soligenix. Release

Medical Devices

CAS Medical Systems has named Brian Wagner as chief commercial officer. Most recently, Wagner was senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Philips Imaging Systems. Release

GlySure Limited has appointed Justine McQuillan as its European director of clinical affairs. McQuillan comes to GlySure after 8 years with Medicsight, having most recently served as vice president of clinical development. Release

CRO

Roxanne Tavakkol has been appointed to the position of vice president, regulatory and scientific services at TKL Research. She most recently served as the vice president of regulatory affairs and quality assurance with a well-established biotechnology company. Release

Biomarkers

Activiomics appointed Kevin FitzGerald as the company's CEO. The company also recently completed validation studies of its TIQUAS technology and extended its collaboration with the Japanese pharmaceutical Kyowa Hakko Kirin. Release

IT

PHT named Michael Owings the company's vice president of quality and regulatory compliance. Before PHT, Owings served as vice president of audit and compliance at Phase Forward/Oracle Health Sciences for 12 years. Release

Core Informatics named former IBM exec Josh Geballe as the company's CEO. Geballe had served IBM for over a decade in several executive positions. Release