Therachon (Basel, Switzerland) has announced the appointment of Christian Meyer (right) as chief medical officer effective November 1. He succeeds Maarten Kraan, who will remain as an advisor to the company. Meyer was most recently chief medical officer at uniQure, where he supported Glybera, the first AAV gene therapy ever approved, and was instrumental to uniQure's IPO on NASDAQ in 2014. Before joining uniQure, he held several senior executive positions at Cardoz, Symphogen and Zymenex.

“We are pleased to welcome Christian to the team,” said Therachon CEO Luca Santarelli. “His entrepreneurial drive and successful track record in executing drug development and regulatory strategies in rare diseases will be an asset to Therachon as we continue to grow as a company.”

Nektar Therapeutics (San Francisco) has named Jeff Ajer to its board of directors. Ajer has more than 25 years of industry experience within rare disease and specialty medicine. He is currently executive vice president and chief commercial officer of BioMarin Pharmaceutical.

Soraya Bekkali has been appointed CEO, chief medical officer and a member of the board of directors of the ophthalmology company Gyroscope Therapeutics (London). She brings over 20 years' industry experience with a specific focus in the fields of gene therapy and ophthalmology. Prior to joining Gyroscope, she served as senior vice president and chief medical officer of Lysogene.

NeuroVive Pharmaceutical (Lund, Sweden) has announced the appointment of Mark Farmery as vice president of business development. Farmery has over 16 years' experience in asset scouting and evaluation, negotiation, and project and alliance management. Prior to joining NeuroVive, he held various business development positions at Karolinska Institute Innovations, AstraZeneca and Karo Bio.

Healthcare and technology venture capital firm F-Prime Capital (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Joshua Grass as entrepreneur-in-residence. Previously, Grass spent 15 years as director of business development and finance at BioMarin Pharmaceutical.

Peter Guenter has been appointed CEO of Almirall (Barcelona). He joins the company after a 22-year career at Sanofi, where he held senior management roles including executive vice president, diabetes and cardiovascular global business unit; vice president, Eastern Europe and Northern Europe; and vice president, business management and support.

Clinical-stage gene therapy developer bluebird bio (Cambridge, MA, USA) has named Mary Lynne Hedley to its board of directors. Hedley cofounded Tesaro in 2010 and, since that time, has served as the company's president and as a member of its board of directors. Previously, she served as executive vice president of operations and chief scientific officer at Abraxis BioScience.

Privately held Arvinas (New Haven, CT, USA) has appointed John Houston president and CEO. He also joins the board of directors of Arvinas Holding Company and all of its subsidiaries. He joined Arvinas in January as president of R&D and chief scientific officer from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he served on the executive team that drove decision-making on drugs such as Daklinza (daclatasvir), Farxiga (dapagliflozin), Eliquis (apixaban), Yervoy (ipilimumab) and Opdivo (nivolumab).

Privately held medical device company Relievant Medsystems (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) announced the appointment of Kevin Hykes as president, CEO and a member of the board of directors. Alex DiNello, the company's CEO since 2011, will remain as COO. Hykes joins Relievant from Metavention, where he served as chairman and CEO, in addition to his role as an operating partner at Versant Ventures. He is staying on as chairman of the board of directors at Metavention.

W. Michael Korn has been named chief medical officer of Caris Life Sciences (Irving, TX, USA). Korn is a professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. He founded the Molecular Oncology Initiative at UCSF's Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and initiated and chaired the UCSF Molecular Tumor Board, which is a cross-disciplinary platform that supports clinical decision-making based on next-generation sequencing results.

Matthew P. Ottmer (right) has been named COO of Voyager Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA, USA). He brings over 18 years of industry experience, and most recently served as COO of Momenta Pharmaceuticals. Previously he held various positions at Biogen, including senior vice president, strategy and emerging businesses.

Former GlaxoSmithKline chairman of pharmaceutical R&D Moncef Slaoui has joined life sciences investment firm Medicxi (London) as partner.

DURECT (Cupertino, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Myriam Theeuwes as senior vice president, clinical development. She joins the company from Johnson & Johnson, where she spent 18 years, most recently as compound development team leader for Janssen Pharmaceutical's global public health initiatives.

Hatteras Venture Partners (Durham, NC, USA) has named Sir Andrew Witty as a venture partner. He joined GlaxoSmithKline in 1985 and served in various senior roles in the UK, the US, South Africa and Singapore, and was CEO from 2008 until he retired this year. Witty is also chancellor of the University of Nottingham and serves on the boards of UnitedHealth Group and G1 Therapeutics.