Grail: Harpal Kumar
Grail has appointed Harpal Kumar as president of Grail Europe, a new role within the company. Kumar joins Grail from Johnson & Johnson where he most recently served as senior vice president and head of innovation EMEA, overseeing a portfolio of regional co-investments and collaborations. Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Kumar spent 15 years with Cancer Research UK, serving as the organization's CEO from April 2007 until June 2018. Prior to this, he was CRUK's COO and executive director of development, as well as chief executive of CRUK subsidiary Cancer Research Technology.
Before CRUK, he worked with McKinsey & Co, the Papworth Trust, and Nexan Group. He received a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Manchester, Newcastle, and Glasgow, and the Institute of Cancer Research, and he is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2016, he was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for services to cancer research.
Adaptive Biotechnologies: Mark Adams, Jyoti Palaniappan, Thomas Snyder
Adaptive Biotechnologies has appointed Mark Adams as chief technical officer, Jyoti Palaniappan as senior vice president of clinical diagnostics for the ImmunoSeq Dx program, and Thomas Snyder as vice president of research, ImmunoSeq Dx.
Adams has been involved in the strategy, design, and implementation of large-scale bioinformatics and data analytics programs for companies including SVB Leerink, Celmatix, Good Start Genetics, and Variagenics. He holds a PhD in cell biology from Baylor College of Medicine and completed his postdoc in computational biology at Boston University. He assumes the CTO role from Sean Nolan, who will fill a newly created role of distinguished engineer.
Palaniappan previously served as chief commercial officer for Bigfoot Biomedical. He also spent 11 years in Abbott's diabetes care business. Prior to Abbott he led global and US commercial organizations for Thermo Fisher Scientific, and provided strategic consulting services at McKinsey & Company. He holds an MBA/MPH from Emory University.
Snyder returns to Adaptive after five years as head of computational biology at Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences).
Genetron Health: Yun-Fu Hu
Chinese precision oncology company Genetron Holdings (Genetron Health) has appointed Yun-Fu Hu as chief medical officer. A former deputy director with the US Food and Drug Administration, Hu will be tasked to guide the company in its in vitro diagnostic device registration and regulatory affairs as well as its biopharma services business. At the FDA Hu led a team in premarket reviews and post-market compliance of IVD products and laboratory-developed tests for genetic testing, molecular cancer diagnostics, companion diagnostics, radiodosimetry, digital pathology, and artificial intelligence devices. Prior to joining FDA, Hu had more than 10 years of product development experience in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries.
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