Illumina (San Diego) has announced the appointment of Phil Febbo (left) as chief medical officer. Febbo most recently served as chief medical officer of Genomic Health. Previously, he was professor of medicine and urology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was the co-leader of the prostate cancer program at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the program principal investigator of the Translational Research Program for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.

“We are very excited to welcome Dr. Febbo, who comes to us at a transformative time in the evolution of genomic medicine,” said Garret Hampton, executive vice president of clinical genomics at Illumina. “Phil brings a wealth of clinical and scientific experience to Illumina, from understanding the genomic basis of common human cancers, to the development of clinical tests based on next-generation sequencing. We believe that his experience will ensure that Illumina is uniquely positioned to change medical practice with the use of genomics.”

John M. Baldoni has been appointed to TARA Biosystems' (New York) board of directors. He currently serves as senior vice president of in silico drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline.

Norbert Bischofberger is stepping down from his role as CSO and head of R&D of Gilead Sciences (Foster City, CA, USA). Bischofberger first joined Gilead in 1990. He has been an executive vice president for the past 18 years and CSO since 2007. He will remain with the company through July, but John McHutchison, Gilead's head of clinical research, will take over his duties at the end of April.

IDEAYA Biosciences (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has named Julie Hambleton senior vice president and chief medical officer, head of development. Hambleton previously served as vice president, head of US medical at Bristol-Myers Squibb. From 2012 to 2016, she was executive vice president and chief medical officer at Five Prime Therapeutics.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Boston) has announced that Reshma Kewalramani has been appointed chief medical officer and executive vice president, global medicines development and medical affairs, succeeding Jeffrey A. Chodakewitz. She previously served as Vertex's senior vice president, clinical development and medical affairs. Chodakewitz will remain with Vertex as a senior advisor through early 2019.

Less than two years into her tenure, Daphne Koller has resigned as chief computing officer of Alphabet's life science spin-off, Calico (S. San Francisco, CA, USA). A former Stanford University computer science professor, Koller co-founded online educational company Coursera in 2012, serving as co-CEO and later president.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Theranos (Palo Alto, CA, USA), founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and former president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani with fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company's technology, business, and financial performance. Theranos and Holmes have agreed to resolve the charges against them. In addition, Holmes has agreed to give up majority voting control over the company, as well as to a reduction of her equity which, combined with shares she previously returned, materially reduces her equity stake.

Genome editing company Editas Medicine (Cambridge, MA, USA) has appointed Jessica Hopfield to its board of directors. Hopfield currently serves as chairperson of the board of trustees of the Joslin Diabetes Center and lead independent director on the board of directors of Insulet. In addition, she is a strategic advisor and investor in startup healthcare firms.

Second Genome (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) has announced the appointment of Matthew W. McClure as chief medical officer. McClure joins the company from Johnson & Johnson, where he was responsible for all aspects of the simultaneous development, strategy and planning of three compounds in the infectious diseases area.

Bispecific antibody developer EpimAb Biotherapeutics (Shanghai) has announced the appointment of Bin Peng as its first chief medical officer. Peng was formerly global head of oncology translational medicine for China at Novartis, and prior to that, was senior director of clinical pharmacology at GlaxoSmithKline.

Gregory Perry has been appointed to the board of directors of Kala Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA, USA), and named chair of its audit committee. Perry has served as audit committee chair at Merus since 2016 and was chief financial and administrative officer at Aegerion Pharmaceuticals and Novelion Therapeutics.

Federico Pollano has joined Rentschler Biopharma (Laupheim, Germany) as senior vice president, business development, succeeding Christoph Winterhalter. Pollano was most recently global director contract manufacturing and business development at Polpharma Biologics.

Mission Therapeutics (Cambridge, UK) has named Bobby Soni to its board of directors, replacing Rob Woodman as the representative for IP Group plc. Soni is currently director of healthcare investments at Touchstone Innovations, now part of IP Group. He is a non-executive director of Storm Therapeutics, Enterprise Therapeutics, Artios Pharma, Pulmocide, and Autifony.

Henrik Stenqvist has been appointed CFO and a member of the executive committee of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Stockholm). He joins the company after serving as CFO of Recipharm.

Aled Williams (left) has been appointed to the position of chief commercial officer and head of patient access at Therachon (Basel, Switzerland). He has over 25 years of experience in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, most recently serving as vice president and global strategy head for rare gastrointestinal diseases at Shire. Prior to Shire, he held leadership positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Roche.