People on the move

Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced the sudden death of James Palmer, aged 51, the firm's chief scientific officer and president of the Pharmaceutical Research Institute. His death occurred after undergoing surgery. Elliot Sigal, BMS' senior vice president of global clinical and pharmaceutical development, becomes acting president of the PRI.

Martin Madaus has been appointed as president and CEO of Millipore. He will replace Francis Lunger, who will remain chairman of the board during the transition.

David Schwartz will be the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, the NIH said on Monday. He will replace Kenneth Olden, who stepped down as NIEHS director last year.

John Hanlon, chief financial officer and executive vice president of Accelrys, will resign on 31 December, according to Securities and Exchange Commission notification. James Mihlik, the company's current worldwide controller, will take over is duties while Accelrys looks for a new CFO.

Ali Arjomand has joined Accium BioSciences, a startup focusing on measuring metabolites by accelerator mass spectrometry, as chief operating officer. He joins the company from CombiMatrix, where he was director of technical business development.

Michael Schrader has left his post as co-chief executive of Hannover, Germany-based peptidomics company BioVisioN to take up a professorship in physical chemistry and instrumental analysis at the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan in Freising, Germany.

Pharmaceutical industry veteran Gary Noon has been appointed senior vice president for pharmaceuticals at Diversa. He was formerly at IMS Health, having previously held positions at Pfizer/Warner-Lambert, GlaxoWellcome and BMS.

Bob Beltz has joined MFIC as marketing manager for the US-based company's microfluidics division. He will lead the market introduction of the company's new, patented, high-pressure Multiple Stream Mixer Reactor (MMR) for the continuous creation of nanoparticles.

Manuel Hidalgo has joined the scientific advisory board of Aclara Biosciences. He is an associate professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.