Kenneth Widder

Curetis announced that Christopher Bernard has resigned as CEO and president of Curetis USA, as well as from the firm's management board, effective Aug. 31. The company has appointed Chris Emery to replace him, effective Sept. 1.

Bernard joined Curetis USA as CEO and president in July 2016 and had served on Curetis NV's management board since June 2018.

Emery has more than 20 years of commercial experience in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to Curetis, Emery served as chief commercial officer of North America for Menarini Silicon Biosystems, where he directed US sales and business development activities for the DepArray Nxt molecular device and integrated the CellSearch Circulating Tumor Cell test. He has also served as general manager for Abbott's PersonalizeDx cancer diagnostics laboratory division and has held senior level management roles at CombiMatrix, Response Genetics, and US Labs.

Precipio has appointed Kathleen LaPorte to its board as an independent member. She will replace Michael Allen Luther, who first served on the board of Transgenomic starting in 2014 and remained on it after that firm merged with Precipio.  

LaPorte was a general partner with Sprout Group from 1993 to 2004 and was a founder of New Leaf Venture Partners. She is also a cofounder of Health Tech Capital and was CEO of immuno-oncology diagnostic company Nodality. 

Genomiqa announced today that it has appointed Colin Albert as its new CEO. Albert previously held the roles of commercial head and regional general manager of the Asia-Pacific region for Roche Foundation Medicine. Prior to those roles, he served as VP of business effectiveness and strategy at Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals.

CareDx Chief Operating Officer Mitchell Nelles told the company on July 31 that he intends to retire, effective Sept. 28, according to a document filed with the US Securities Exchange Commission. Nelles joined CareDx in 2007, when it was called XDx, as VP of R&D. Prior to that, Nelles served as VP of North American R&D at BioMérieux.

Eric Stawiski has been appointed vice president of bioinformatics at MedGenome. He is tasked with scaling up the company's bioinformatics services and building new products and IP. He was previously at Genentech where he was a group leader for a team focused on analyzing RNA-seq, exome, and copy number data to identify potential driver genes and drug targets in cancers, as well as evaluating new sequencing technologies. 

Agilent Technologies said its senior VP and CFO Didier Hirsch will retire, effective Oct 31. The company has appointed Robert McMahon, currently CFO of Hologic, as his successor. McMahon will join Agilent on Aug. 3 as senior VP and will become CFO on Sept. 1 when Hirsch steps down from that post. Hirsch will continue as an active member of the executive staff until his retirement date at the end of the fiscal year and will work with McMahon to ensure a smooth transition.

Hirsch has served as Agilent's CFO since 2010. Before that, he had oversight of the corporate controllership and tax functions. He joined Agilent in 1999 as VP of treasury and investor relations. He also held various international finance positions at HP from 1989 until joining Agilent.
McMahon has served as Hologic's CFO since 2014. Prior to that, he spent 20 years with Johnson & Johnson, most recently as worldwide VP of finance and business development for Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. He also held a variety of financial leadership positions within Johnson & Johnson after joining the company in 1993.

Separately, Hologic said it would promote its current Chief Accounting Officer Karleen Oberton to replace McMahon as CFO. She joined Hologic in 2006 as corporate controller and was promoted to her current position in 2015. Prior to that, Oberton served as senior corporate controller for Immunogen, and as a senior audit manager for both Ernst Young and Arthur Andersen.