People, May, 2005

• David Forrest joins Abbott Laboratories as new UK general manager. He rejoins the company, having previously spent seven years there between 1992 - 1999. He has 20 years' experience in the healthcare industry, centered chiefly on sales and marketing positions as well as general management in major healthcare companies, including Johnson and Johnson, Pharmacia and Pfizer.

• Cambridge Laboratories has appointed Dr John Padfield as a non-executive director.  He has extensive board experience in both public and private companies within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. Formerly, he was CEO of Amersham Health and a director of Amersham. He was also a director of Glaxo Group Research and Glaxo Manufacturing Services, and CEO of Chiroscience Group. Currently,  he is chairman of Lorantis, Nextpharma Technologies and the Wellchild Trust.

• Aaron Clark, joins Seven Stones as project manager from the marketing department of The Lancet. Prior to that, he worked at the Medical Journal of Australia in their DM subsidiary. Notable experience includes working on the GP launch and  patient support programs for Zyban and Aropax (Seroxat).

• Minster Pharmaceuticals has appointed John Russell to the board as a nonexecutive director. John has over 20 years' experience of investment banking in Sydney, London and New York at a senior level with Bain & Co and Deustche Bank. Since then he has worked as a consultant and corporate finance adviser to smaller British and Australian companies with emphasis on the information technology and biotechnology sectors.
  
  
• IntegraGen has appointed Gerald Wagner as nonexecutive director. Gerald brings with him over 30 yearsí commercial experience, having held a number of senior roles at Agfa Corporation and Bayer Corporation. Since leaving Bayer in 2002, Gerald has been a consultant to a number of companies and organisations, providing international project management, automation and materials management, and long-term strategy expertise.
  
  
• Paul Laland, a corporate executive with more than 20 yearsí experience in pharma and biotech communications, has joined VaxGen as vice president of corporate and financial communications. He served most recently as senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard International Communications where he established and headed the firmís life sciences group on the West Coast of America. He also served as co-chair of the firm's global healthcare practice. Prior to that, he has had various corporate communications positions at Genentech, Synergen, GD Searle and Deltagen.
  
  
• Linda Rubinstein has been appointed by Solexa as vice president. She has more than 16 years of life sciences industry and financial experience. As principal of RDJ Advisors, a financial and business consulting firm, she provided strategic planning and financial expertise to biotechnology companies.
  
  
• The MSI Consultancy has appointed a new consultant, Anne Guillaume. She has broad experience in ethical and biotech pharmaceutical marketing and spent over 10 years at Pfizer Belgium, working in product and marketing management positions.
  
  
• Jo Pillai has been appointed vice president of human resources at Norgine. She joins from GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) global research and development organisation where she held the post of director of human resources. In addition, Georges AndrÈ has been appointed as the vice president of manufacturing. He also joins Norgine from GSK where he was employed as the vice president and site director for GSK Evreux.
  
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• Cohn & Wolfe has appointed Mark Lawson to play a leading role in developing Catalyst, its professional relations and medical education offering. Lawson has been a client of Cohn & Wolfe for two years in his role as senior brand manager for ReQuip. He joins as senior professional relations manager. Catalyst was established nine months ago and has since made major new business wins with clients such as Novartis, Pfizer, Altana and GSK.
  
  
• Avenue HKM has appointed Sandy Thomson as a company board director. She served most recently as head of health communications at Novartis UK and has over 15 years' experience of the pharma industry spanning clinical R&D, marketing and sales.
  
  
• Ketchum has promoted two of its healthcare leaders to new roles; Mark Cater, a partner and, most recently, managing director of the firm's European healthcare operations, has been named director of global healthcare practice. He has also served as the practice's associate director for the past two years and will relocate to New York to assume his new position. He takes over the role from partner David Catlett, who becomes director, of healthcare client service and development.
  
  
• Dr Leo Francis, president of OCC Europe, is joining Resolute Communications as a board director. Dr Francis has an extensive heritage in medical communications built from a career spanning clientside international clinical development and medical marketing, through to medical education, opinion leader and brand development on the agency side of the business.
  
  
• IDIS has made two promotions within its marketing team; Rachel Tebbutt and Awena Robert have been promoted to UK brand manager and European brand manager, respectively. Rachel joined the marketing team in March 2003 as marketing executive and previously worked at Pfizer. Awena joined the marketing team in August 2003, following an internal move.
  
  
• Ian Dorrian, will lead the newly formed Ogilvy Healthworld Advertising as managing director. Ogilvy and Healthworld Advertising London have joined forces to form the new agency. The companyís revenues will rank Ogilvy Healthworld Advertising comfortably within the top five healthcare  advertising agencies in the UK.
  
  
• DDB Health has made four new appointments; Kate Reid joins as senior account director. She originally trained as a dietician before joining Roche and launching Xenical in New Zealand and in the UK. She brings a wealth of strategic knowledge with her. On the creative side, Suzanne Lynch-McKay joins as a copywriter and has helped create a number of award-winning campaigns. Sarah Walmsley was involved in the successful launch of GSK/Bayer's Levitra in New Zealand before joining DDB Health as an account executive. Melanie Lester-Swindell joins as an account manager. She has an abundance of international pharmaceutical knowledge.
  
  
• RSA has appointed Stephanie Gallagher as a consultant in its interims division. Prior to this, Stephanie worked at GSK for 14 years. She brings with her a broad knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry.
  
  
• Michael Withers has been appointed by MXM Medical Communications as editorial director. Michael has 15 years' editorial and multimedia experience in the medical education and communications industry, working with a number of international clients. He was with PPS (subsequently Parexel) for 11 years, and was recently operations director for Adelphi MediCine.
  
  
• Pharmaceutical Marketing Ltd has appointed Alan Walker as business development manager, working specifically on the new Breakthrough project. He joins from the BMA where he spent eight years as BMJ advertising manager, and business development manager on bmj.com.
  
  
• hsdcommunications has appointed Suzie Collett in an associate director role to strengthen its medical education and global pharma PR expertise. She has previously worked at many global PR agencies including Manning, Selvage & Lee and Ogilvy PR Worldwide. She began her career as a broadcast medical journalist at ITN and has spent the last 14 years in agency work.
  
  
  
• Tonic Life Communications has made two appointments: Miranda Penfound joins as an account executive from Cohn & Wolfe where she has been part of the consumer health team for the last two years. Monica Gounaropoulos has joined as an assistant account executive. Previously, she was a PR executive at Sodexho, the leading French catering and support service company.
  

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