Preclinical services firm Asterand has announced the departure of Ronald Openshaw, the company's CFO. Openshaw will step down after the firm publishes its annual results later this month. Openshaw acted as CEO to Pharmagene prior to the merger between the two firms. He has decided not to pursue an application to succeed the current CEO. Biopharmaceutical services company Laureate Pharma has also announced some shake up among its Board. The firm has elected Tracy Ken Tsuetaki as non-executive chairman of its Board of Directors. Tsuetaki is currently president of medical communications and consulting at Quintiles where he is responsible for their global consulting and medical education groups. Previously, he was senior vice president of Global Business Development for the company. Meanwhile, PPD has promoted Andy Strayer, Sue Stansfield, Mark Roseman and Randy Marchbanks last week. Strayer becomes vice president of clinical operations for the Americas and Asia, while Stansfield will serve the same role for the Europe region. Roseman was promoted to vice president of clinical operations and will be based in the firm's North Carolina office, and Marchbanks will assume the role of vice president of business for the Americas, being responsible for Phase II-IV business. PPD also announced the departure of Colin Shannon from its position as executive vice president of global clinical operations. Other exits were announced last week. David Jones, chairman of the board of Hospira announced he will retire from the board at the end of his term next May. He will be replaced by the company CEO Christopher Begley. In other news, contract research organisation (CRO) Kendle has decided to further strengthen its global clinical development operations with a number of appointments. The firm has promoted Martha Feller to senior vice president of global clinical development, while Ubavka Denoble and Judith Swilley are appointed vice president and senior director respectively. Kendle said it expects these recently announced appointments to drive continued growth in its Phase II-III business.
