Fereydoun Firouz has resigned as president and CEO of EMD Serono, a Merck KGaA affiliate. Firouz worked at EMD Serono and has now “independently decided to pursue other interests”. James Hoyes, the current chief commercial officer, will lead the company on an interim basis.
Sanofi Pasteur has appointed Damian Braga as global head of commercial operations. The new position was created by Olivier Charmeil, CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, to consolidate commercial operations under one person. Braga was president of Sanofi Pasteur US.
Christian Holtmann has been named as CEO of Klöckner Pentaplast Group, succeeding Tom Goeke who will continue as an advisor to the company. Holtmann last worked as CEO of PolymerLatex.
AmerisourceBergen has appointed Steven Collis to its board of directors. Collis, currently president and chief operating officer at AmerisourceBergen, will become CEO on July 1.
Stephen Kelsey has been named executive vice president (EVP), head of research and development and chief medical officer at Geron. Kelsey joined Geron in 2009 from Genentech.
Geron has also promoted two employees who joined in 1998. Jane Lebkowski is now SVP and chief scientific officer and Melissa Kelly Behrs has taken the role of SVP, strategic portfolio management.
OctoPlus has added Jan Egberts to its executive board. Egberts joined OctoPlus as CEO at the start of the year having previously worked at Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson and other pharma companies.
Per Bengtsson has been named as acting president and CEO at Karo Bio.