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People In The News: Feb 15, 2013

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Nanosphere said this week in its fourth-quarter financial report that it has promoted Michael McGarrity to succeed William Moffitt as its new president and CEO.

The company also said it has appointed Sheli Rosenberg, Michael Ward, and McGarrity to serve on its board of directors, while Moffitt, William White, Mark Slezak, and Roy Davis have all resigned from the board. Rosenberg, who served on Nanosphere's board from 2002 to 2012, will be the new chair of the board.

McGarrity previously was VP of sales and marketing and chief commercial officer, and he has 24 years of experience in the medical devices industry, including 13 years at Stryker.


Cepheid said this week that its CEO John Bishop will also become chairman of the board of directors, succeeding current chair Thomas Gutshall, who will continue to serve on the board.

Cepheid also said that Cristina Kepner has been named lead independent director. Kepner has been a director at the company since 1998, and she previously served on the board at Monogram Biosciences and at Quipp.


Berkeley Research Group said this week that it has named Edward Buthusiem to be a director and a member of its Health Analytics Practice. Buthusiem previously was general counsel at Danaher and an executive at GlaxoSmithKline, where he was senior VP and general counsel of Global Research and Development and Vaccines.

During his career, Buthusiem has counseled and coordinated responses to foreign and domestic government investigations concerning clinical trials, Food and Drug Administration-regulated issues, antitrust and competition, bribery and corruption, and other areas.


BioFocus has hired Peter Rehse to manage the structural biology and fragment-based screening groups in its Biological Sciences division. Rehse comes to BioFocus from the Chinese CRO Shanghai Medicilon, where he was VP. He previously worked at the Riken Harima Institute in Japan and he has held other positions in Japan and China.


Quest Diagnostics has promoted Tracy Cinco-Abela to be VP and treasurer. Before Cinco-Abela joined Quest in 2007 she worked for the General Motors Treasurer's Office, and at Quest she most recently was the company's assistant treasurer.


Pressure BioSciences has appointed Mickey Urdea to serve on its board of directors, filling the seat left by Wayne Fritzsche, who resigned last week to pursue a full-time management position at the company.

Urdea, who also will lead PBI's scientific advisory board, founded and is a managing partner of the biotech consulting firm Halteres Associates. He also founded and was CEO of Tethys Bioscience, and he helped found and served as chairman of the Catalysis Foundation for Health.


The Clearity Foundation, a nonprofit that helps ovarian cancer patients make decisions about personalized medicine options, has appointed John Crawford and Wendy Johnson to be co-chairs of its board of directors, and it has named Ellen Marks to be its new director.

Crawford formerly was CFO at Phenomix and at NovaCardia, Cabrellis Pharmaceutical, and Conforma Therapeutics. Johnson is president and CEO of Aires Pharmaceuticals and a venture partner at ProQuest Investments, and she previously was an assistant director at the Food and Drug Administration. Marks has over 30 years of experience working on national and regional non-profit boards.


Danaher said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Mortimer Caplin has decided not to stand for reelection to the company's board of directors and will retire after the firm's annual meeting in May.


Evogen this week appointed Hans Kastensmith as president and CEO and Robert Dondes as COO.

Kastensmith was founder and president of I-Trax Medical Solutions and has also served as a partner with Capitol Health Associates and operating partner with Matchpoint Partners. Dondes has previously served as CEO of Gettysburg Health Administrators and Mid-Atlantic Managed Care Organization; president and CEO of HealthCentral; and Senior Consultant of managed care for The Tompkins Group, among other executive positions with private and publicly traded heathcare companies.


The European Life-science Infrastructure for Biological Information's interim board has tapped Niklas Blomberg to serve as founding director of ELIXIR, which provides life sciences data storage and services to researchers in Europe. Blomberg is a principal scientist and team leader in computational chemistry and computational biology at AstraZeneca's Mölndal, Sweden-based office.


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