People, November, 2007

Amit Makwana has been appointed as managing director of Astellas Pharma. Amit joined Astellas in 1999, before moving on to a number of key marketing positions in the UK and Europe. In 2005, he rejoined Astellas Pharma as sales director of the newly merged UK affiliate. Prior to his appointment as managing director, he was deputy general manager.

Kenneth Scrimgeour has been made chief commercial officer at Norgine. Following a variety of senior sales and marketing roles in Europe and the US. Ken joined Norgine in 2004 as vice-president of the UK business unit. In his new capacity, he will be responsible for Norgineís worldwide sales and marketing business units, as well as global marketing.

Nycomed has appointed Dr Samin Saeed as a medical adviser. Dr Saeed has a particular interest in pain management, oncology, respiratory medicine and diabetes, and joins the company direct from the NHS. She is the second surgeon to join Nycomedís medical team.

Dr Huw Jones will replace Dr Maureen Lindsay as chief executive officer of Ardana, following Dr Lindsayís decision to step down from her position as CEO and director. Huw was most recently president, Europe, for CV Therapeutics.

Simon Williams ñ a key figure at the Patients Association for over 10 years ñ has joined the Patient Information Forum as a business development associate.

Phocus has appointed Louise Huneault as director of client services and promoted Charles Robinson to account director. As a former diabetes educator, product manager and founder of a medical communications company in Canada, Louise has experience of clinical marketing communications. Charles has a BSc in bio-chemistry, an MSc in human nutrition and more than 10 yearsí experience in medical marketing communications.

Anna Jeremiah and Maria Middlemist have been hired by MedSense. Anna joins from the cabinet office, and brings project management and process analyst experience, while Maria worked previously at Schering-Plough in Colombia and will work on MedSenseís Latin American programmes.

Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L) has appointed Judith Cranford as head of healthcare in London. Judith, who is currently an independent consultant in Washington, DC, will begin her role in January 2008. In the meantime, Nigel Breakwell will fill the position as interim head at the agency. In January Judith, Nigel and CEO Stuart Wilson will determine long-term roles for the London healthcare team at MS&L.

Discovery London has announced that Effie Baoutis will replace Jane Smith as managing director when Jane relocates to Australia. Effie joins from The Remedy and brings over 10 yearsí experience in medical education.

Angela Fiorin has been appointed assistant manager, client services at Wells Healthcare Communications, part of the Interlace Global group of companies. She joins from a top 10 global healthcare communications agency and brings three yearsí experience in international strategic accounts management. In addition, Wells Healthcare has appointed Dr Debra Scates as medical writer and John Lyttle as director of client services. An oncology specialist, Dr Scates has a PhD in biochemistry. She worked for 10 years at the Institute of Cancer Research and has published over 10 peer-reviewed papers. John is a microbiologist, who held senior strategic marketing positions at Chiron Vaccines, Powderject and Lederle, and has seven yearsí international med comms experience.

Susan Russell and Thomas Schleimer have been appointed as senior consultants to Astralis Groupís life sciences unit. Thomas has 18 yearsí exper-ience from various senior roles within medical technology and speciality pharmaceuticals. His most recent assignment was with Cephalon as business unit director for the Nordic.

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Creative Lynx has appointed David Hunt as director of e-communications and offered him a seat on the board. David joined the agency almost a decade ago and has been responsible for developing its e-detailing capabilities. Claire Elliot has also joined Creative Lynx as an account executive to its pharma team. She joins from The Agency in Manchester.

Saima Ali and Simon Mitchelson have joined Cherry Advertising as account executives, and Alana Hawke has joined as copywriter. Previously, Saima worked in pharma sales, most recently as primary care rep for Pfizer; Simon was a rep for the cardiovascular division of MSD and Alana was a medical writer from Chameleon Communications.

Julie Tiley has joined Adventis Healthcare subsidiary LeapFrog Medical Communications as account manager. Most recently she was group product manager for childhood vaccines at Sanofi Pasteur MSD. In addition, Emily Dey and Caroline Barnes have joined the agency.

Nick Stewart, former science press manager at Cancer Research UK, has joined Just:: Health PR. Nick will work predominantly on Just::ís UK account portfolio, for clients such as Roche and Novartis.

Harten Group has appointed Sam Carter as client manager ñ permanent recruitment. Before joining Harten Group, Sam spent a number of years in the pharma industry.

Anna Garofalo and Bridget Pumfrey join Double Helix Development as senior healthcare market researchers. Anna has worked in inter-national pharmaceutical market research for 20 years. Bridget has 14 yearsí experience in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Simon Toombs has been appointed client development director of the Partnership Marketing Agency. He leaves ICLP where he performed a similar role.

ApaTech has announced the appointment of John von Beneche as group financial controller and Ian Ellis as vice-president, marketing. John joins from Biocompatibles where he was responsible for business planning and analysis, while Ian was previously with Strata-G ñ a consultancy firm offering marketing support to start-up and young biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

ScopeMedical has made four hires: Jessica Blackwell as a project co-ordinator, Rebecca Mitchell as editorial assistant, Emily Violette as a senior account executive and Tracey Whittington as its office manager.

Tim Warren has been appointed as the first ever director of business development at Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare. Tim has spent over a decade in client-side marketing roles of increasing responsibility and has worked at Schering-Plough, AstraZeneca and Sanofi Pasteur MSD. Stuart Money has joined Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcareís digital offering from Euro RSCG. Prior to joining Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare, Stuart worked with numerous blue-chip clients including GSK, Novartis and Merck Sharpe and Dohme.

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