Following Dennis Fenton's decision to retire from his role as vice president of operations, senior vice president of manufacturing Fabrizio Bonanni will be stepping up to take over the role at biotech behemoth Amgen.
Fenton leaves after 25 years with the company, joining the firm in its early days and now one of its longest serving staff members. Bonanni has been senior vice president of manufacturing at the company since 2003, overseeing the company's site operations and contract manufacturing.
Prior to joining Amgen, Bonanni held senior position at Baxter International. Madhu Balachandran will take over Bonanni's former role, currently at Amgen's Puerto Rico operations.
Californian protein-based drug developer Ambrx has appointed Stephen Kaldor as CEO and president, and to the board of directors. He joins the firm from Takeda San Diego - the US discovery research arm of Japan's Takeda Pharma - where he served as president and chief scientific officer.
Ambrx was recently successful in securing Merck Serono as a partner for the development of its first clinical candiate, ARX201, a next-generation long-acting human growth hormone.
Elliott Berger has been appointed senior vice president of regulatory affairs for novel therapeutics firm BioCryst Pharmaceuticals.
Berger previously held senior quality and regulatory positions at EMD Pharmaceuticals (a subsidiary of Merck KGaA), Astra pharmaceuticals and Merck Research laboratories.
In his new role, Berger will be involved in clinical research programmes for influenza, leukaemia, lymphoma, autoimmune disease and transplant rejection, said the firm.
In other news, Ramesh Pandey, the chairman, CEO and founder of small biologics firm Xechem has recently been outsed by its board of directors and temporarily replaced by board member Robert Swift.
No reason was given for his replacement, although the firm said he will still continue to serve on the company's board of directors in an advisory role.
However, at the same time Xechem also announced a cost-cutting plan involving the closure of its current New Jersey headquarters and a relocation to cheaper facilities.
Part of this plan also involves an increased focus on its Nigerian operations, where the firm is currently planning to commercially produce its sickle cell disease drug, approved there under the name Nicosan, and in the US and Europe as Hemoxin, although it is not yet on the market.