Horizon Discovery Group (Cambridge, UK) has announced the appointment of Terry Pizzie (right) as CEO and member of the board of directors. Pizzie has close to 30 years of biotech industry leadership experience and joined Horizon Discovery in 2017 as head of commercial operations.

Ian Gilham, executive chairman of the board of directors said, “Since joining Horizon, Terry has been instrumental in building a world-class commercial team, and his outstanding leadership and highly valuable commercial experience will help lead the company through its next phase of growth and development as we transition from building scale through acquisitions towards becoming a sustainably profitable business driven by demand for our market-leading products and services in both gene editing and gene modulation. With Horizon's strong technology and commercial platforms and a highly experienced commercially focused management team in place, Horizon is ideally positioned to execute on its growth plan and create value for shareholders.”

Salomon Azoulay has been named chief medical officer and Adele Gulfo named chief of commercial development at Roivant Sciences (Basel, Switzerland and New York). Azoulay joins Roivant from Pfizer where he has held senior leadership roles since 2001, most recently as senior vice president and chief medical officer for Pfizer Essential Health. Gulfo previously served as president, general manager of Pfizer's US primary care business unit, and head of commercial operations and president of Pfizer Latin America. Most recently, she was executive vice president, chief strategy officer, and head of global commercial development at Mylan.

Sensei Biotherapeutics (Gaithersburg, MD, USA), known as Panacea Pharmaceuticals until earlier this year, has appointed John Celebi president and CEO. Celebi was most recently COO of X4 Pharmaceuticals, following his time as chief business officer of Igenica Biotherapeutics.

Pliant Therapeutics (Redwood City, CA, USA) has named Hoyoung Huh chairman of the board of directors and Éric Lefebvre has joined the company as chief medical officer. Huh currently serves as chairman to the board of directors for Geron and CytomX Therapeutics, director of Eidos Therapeutics and Rezolute, and is the founder of pH Pharma and Healthcare & Humanity Foundation. Prior to joining Pliant, Lefebvre was head of clinical R&D for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis at Allergan. Previously, he was chief medical officer at Tobira Therapeutics.

Samuel D. Isaly has stepped down from his position as managing member of healthcare investment firm OrbiMed (New York) amid allegations of sexual impropriety. Isaly transferred his controlling interest to the firm's five other partners: Sven H. Borho, Carl L. Gordon, Jonathan T. Silverstein, W. Carter Neild and Geoffrey C. Hsu. OrbiMed subsequently announced the promotion of C. Scotland Stevens to general partner. Stevens joined the firm from Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 2005.

Clinical-stage biopharma company Motif Bio (London) has announced the appointment of Stephanie Noviello as vice president, clinical development. She joins Motif Bio from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she was most recently clinical program lead, virology.

Colleen Reitan has been named to the board of directors of RNAi therapeutics company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA). Reitan was previously president of plan operations and COO at Health Care Service Corp., the largest customer-owned health insurer in the US.

GlaxoSmithKline (London) has announced the appointment of Kevin Sin as senior vice president and head of worldwide business development for pharmaceuticals R&D, effectively July 2018. He joins GSK from Genentech, where he is currently vice president and global head of oncology business development.

Annie Teng has joined CANbridge Life Sciences (Beijing) as vice president of clinical development and medical affairs. She was most recently head of biology and early development at Sanofi, after having served for seven years as medical director, specialty care. In addition, CANbridge has appointed Janny Wang as director of quality assurance. Wang spent 11 years with Teva Pharmaceutical's China subsidiary, where she rose to the position of quality assurance and quality control associate director.

Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) has named John Tsai head of global drug development and chief medical officer, succeeding Vas Narasimhan, who became CEO in February 2018. Tsai has been chief medical officer and senior vice president of global medical at Amgen since May 2017. Prior to joining Amgen, he served as global head of clinical development at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Bernhardt G. Zeiher has been promoted to chief medical officer at Astellas (Northbrook, IL, USA). He will continue serving as president of development, while now also overseeing all other functions of Astellas' medical and development organization, including clinical and research quality assurance, medical affairs, pharmacovigilance, planning & administration, and regulatory affairs. Zeiher started his career at Astellas in 2010 as vice president and therapeutic area leader for inflammation, immunology and infectious diseases.

Sanofi (Paris) head of global R&D Elias Zerhouni will retire on June 30, 2018. He will be succeeded by John C. Reed, who was most recently global head of Roche Pharma research & early development. Zerhouni joined Sanofi in 2009 as scientific advisor to the CEO and was appointed to his current post in January 2011.