Millennium Pharmaceuticals has added the following people as Class II directors on its board: Charles Homcy, Raju Kucherlapati, and Eric Lander.
Homcy has served as CEO of Portola Pharmaceuticals. From January 2003 to November 2003, he was senior R&D advisor of Millennium, and was president of R&D between February 2002 and December 2002. Kucherlapati is currently scientific director of Harvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics. Lander is director of the Whitehead Institute’s Center for Genome Research, and professor of biology at MIT.
Thermo Electron has hired Bill Summers as global sales director of informatics, a newly created position. He will be responsible for selling Thermo’s informatics products, including SampleManager and Nautilus LIMS, and the Atlas Chromatography Data System.
Summers comes to Thermo from Aspen Technology, where he was most recently vice president of sales for chemicals/pharmaceuticals. He holds an MS in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut, and an MBA from the University of Houston.
Invitrogen has appointed Ronald Matricaria as a director. He replaced William Mercer, who is retired.
Matricaria is the former chairman and CEO of St. Jude Medical. He holds a BS from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. He is a member of the board of directors of Cyberonics, VistaCare, and CardioDynamics, and is chairman of the board of Haemonetics.
Mercer, who had been a member since 2001, is a founder and managing member of Avocet Ventures, a private equity investment firm. He has also served as managing partner of Aberdeen Strategic Capital, and president, CEO, and director of Alaris Medical and IVAC Medical Systems.
Genaissance Pharmaceuticals has hired Matthew Kalnik senior vice president of business development.
Kalnik comes to Genaissance from Pfizer, where he was most recently executive director and head of pharmacogenomics, commercial development operations in the Global Prescription Business, according to Genaissance.
While at Pharmacia (which was acquired by Pfizer), he chaired the Pharmacogenomics Steering and Operations Committee and developed pharmacogenomic programs in oncology, CNS, growth disorders, and cardiovascular disease. Kalnik also established a pharmacogenomic collaborative network, which included deCODE genetics, Epidauros Biotechnologie, Genaissance, and Myriad Genetics.
He holds a BS in chemistry from the University of North Carolina and a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia University.
The company also hired Krishnan Nandabalan as vice president of corporate development.
Exelixis has appointed Orchid BioSciences chairman George Poste to its board of directors. Poste was formerly the president of research and development of SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) and is currently director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.
Poste is also CEO of the consulting company Health Technology Networks, which specializes in the application of genomic technologies and computing in healthcare.