People in the News

BioMérieux has altered its governance to separate the functions of chairman and CEO.

The firm has appointed current Chief Operating Officer Pierre Boulud as CEO, effective July 1. The current Chairman and CEO, Alexandre Mérieux, will assume the role of executive chairman with extended responsibilities and focus on developing the firm's global strategy. Boulud joined the company in 2016 and has served as COO for the past three years. Mérieux joined BioMérieux in 2005 and became CEO in 2017.

The change in governance was proposed by Mérieux and approved by BioMérieux's board of directors on June 13.

Brad Spitz has been appointed as chief commercial officer of PredxBio. Prior to joining the Pittsburgh-based spatial biology software company, he spent 19 years at Johnson & Johnson, where he held various roles at Ethicon, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Veridex, and Janssen Diagnostics. He also held VP of sales positions at Angle, Orbis Biosciences, and Congenica. Spitz holds an MBA from Elon University and a bachelor's degree in economics and communications from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

SomaLogic announced that Eliot Lurier is joining the company as interim CFO while the firm conducts a search for a permanent CFO. Previous CFO Shaun Blakeman left the company June 5. Lurier brings 35 years of experience in life science industry finance. He is a certified public accountant.

Almaden Genomics has named Ellen Gordon VP and head of business development. As such, she will lead the fledgling bioinformatics firm's efforts to partner with genomic R&D companies and laboratories on target and biomarker discovery. A veteran of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Gordon previously was VP of global accounts at BrightInsight, maker of a software platform for digital health apps in regulated environments. She also briefly served as digital ventures lead at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Nucleix, a Rehovot, Israel-based liquid biopsy company, has appointed Michael Vicari as chief commercial officer to lead commercialization efforts for the firm's Lung EpiCheck blood test for early lung cancer. Vicari joins Nucleix from Grail, where his team launched the Galleri multi-cancer early detection assay. Prior to Grail, Vicari held senior level commercial positions at Inivata, OncoCyte, Sequenom, Monogram Biosciences, and Genentech.

Liquid biopsy company Angle has appointed Brett Swansiger as chief commercial officer (CCO) and Karen Miller as CSO. Swansiger most recently was CCO at DxTerity Diagnostics. He has also held senior commercial positions at Prometheus Laboratories, Agendia, and MDxHealth. He began his life sciences career at Bristol Myers Squibb.

Miller has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, and most recently served as CSO at Ixaka. She has also previously held senior executive positions at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, UCB Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline, and Adaptimmune.

Joel Neoh has joined Prenetics as chief consumer officer and managing director for CircleDNA. Most recently, he founded Fave, a Southeast Asian fintech platform that was acquired by Pine Labs. Previously, he founded GroupsMore, which was acquired by Groupon, where he headed the Asia Pacific business. Earlier, he cofounded Says.com, a digital news platform in Malaysia.

Jean-Marc Roelandt has resigned as Biocartis' CFO for personal reasons. No successor has been named. The Belgian molecular diagnostics firm said the process to find a new CFO has begun, and Roelandt will stay with Biocartis until Aug. 4 to ensure a smooth transition.

David Morgenstern has been appointed as VP of clinical development at Delfi Diagnostics. He joins the cancer liquid biopsy company from Roche Diagnostics, where he was most recently head of clinical development for oncology and genetics. Prior to that, he led clinical affairs at pharmaceutical company Endocyte, and before that, he managed clinical studies at Merck. Morgenstern holds a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Indiana University.

Almaden Genomics has announced the inaugural members of its advisory board. Members include: Samir Cordy, senior VP for informatics at City of Hope Cancer Center; Rayna Herman, chief commercial officer of Eversana; serial entrepreneur Graham Hughes, a former executive at SAS Analytics and GE Healthcare; Adrian Lee, director of the Institute of Precision Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC; and David Miller, operating partner of private equity firm GHO Capital and a former senior VP of global market access at Biogen.