CompanionDx Reference Lab has appointed six new people to its management team. Cint Winter is the firm's new VP of payor strategy and managed care and brings two decades of personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics experience. Terry Lively, with experience in the pharmaceutical and managed care industries, will be VP of new business development, specifically next-generation sequencing commercialization.
CompanionDx has hired three VP of sales: Ronald Conheim, Roderick Booker, and Roger Saadeh. Conheim will lead the sales team in eastern US, while Booker and Saadeh will handle the central and western part of the country, respectively. Stacey Little, VP of marketing and communications, will lead CompanionDx's strategic marketing, marketing communications, and brand management.
Celgene Corporation announced that board member Rodman Drake has passed away. Drake was a member of Celgene's board of directors since 2006, and served on several committees contributing his expertise on corporate governance, finance, and strategy.
Most recently, he was managing director of the private equity group Baringo Capital, a firm he also co-founded. During his career, Drake was CEO and managing director of management consulting firm Cresap McCormick and Paget; co-chairman of KMR Power Company; and president of the consulting firm Mandrake Group.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has appointed James Downing as it new CEO. Downing succeeds William Evans, who is retiring from the post after a decade and is returning full time once again to conducting pharmacogenomics research at St. Jude.
Most recently Downing was deputy director, executing VP, and scientific director at the hospital. Time Magazine in 2012 recognized Downing's work with the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project as one of the top 100 new scientific discoveries. In articulating his priorities for the hospital, Downing has ensured that under the PCGP, an "unprecedented level" of data from comprehensive genomic analyses will be incorporated into the care of every child treated at St. Jude.
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation founder and CEO Kathy Giusti will become the executive chairman of its board of directors, the organization announced. Dana LaForge, the chairman of the board for the last 10 years, will remain on as a board member. Walter Capone has been appointed as MMRF's new president and CEO, and will report to Giusti.