Jay Lichter, executive vice president of business development at Sequenom, has left the company, an outside company spokesperson confirmed last week. Dereck Tatman and Murlai Prahalad, who serve as directors of business development at Sequenom, have assumed his duties. In addition, Pete De Spain, manager of corporate communications at the San Diego company, has left to become manager of corporate communications at Anadys Pharmaceuticals, also of San Diego.
Congressman James Greenwood, who recently held hearings on Capitol Hill to see whether two proteomics researchers at the National Cancer Institute violated conflict of interest rules, will leave the US House of Representatives to become president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. He replaces Carl Feldbaum.
Greenwood, who represents Bucks County, Pa., cancelled congressional hearings on the link between antidepressants and suicide this week to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. As BIO president, Greenwood will be paid an annual base salary of $650,000, plus bonus incentives worth $200,000, according to news reports. He earned $158,100 as a US representative.
Greenwood, a Republican, is chairman of the US Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which has been investigating consulting and awards ethics at the NIH during a series of hearings earlier this month. He has called NCI and US Food and Drug Administration approval of consulting activities by Emanuel Petricoin and Lance Liotta of the NCI-FDA Clinical Proteomics program an “outrage.” Read the article by ProteoMonitor, Pharmacogenomics Reporter’s sister publication, for details.
ChromaVision Medical Systems has hired Roche Molecular Diagnostics veteran Ronald Andrews as president and CEO, the company said last week. Andrews will replace Michael Cola, the chairman of the board, who has served as interim CEO since February 2004.
At Roche, Andrews was senior vice president of marketing and commercial business development.
Eric Fung has been promoted by Ciphergen to the position of vice president of clinical and medical affairs, in its new diagnostics division, the company said July 14. Fung will manage clinical and medical research underlying the company’s clinical diagnostics business initiative in the area of protein molecular diagnostics.
Fung was most recently director of clinical affairs at Ciphergen, which he joined in 2000 as a lead scientist in its Biomarker Discovery Center laboratories.