People in the News

Women's health diagnostics firm Aspira Women's Health has appointed Winfred Parnell a new independent director of the company's board, effective June 1. Parnell is a board-certified physician in obstetrics and gynecologic care and served as chairman of the Parkland Health and Hospital system. He currently is on the board of compounding pharmacy SCA Pharm. Previously, he was chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology, chair of the department of surgery, and president of the medical staff at Medical City Hospital in Dallas.

Jean-Marc Roelandt has resigned as Biocartis' CFO for personal reasons. No successor has been yet named. The Belgian molecular diagnostics firm said the process to find a new CFO has begun, and Roelandt will stay with Biocartis until Aug. 4 to ensure a smooth transition.

David Morgenstern has been appointed as VP of clinical development at Delfi Diagnostics. He joins the cancer liquid biopsy company from Roche Diagnostics, where he was most recently head of clinical development for oncology and genetics. Prior to that, he led clinical affairs at pharmaceutical company Endocyte, and before that, he managed clinical studies at Merck. Morgenstern holds a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Indiana University.

Yafei (Roxi) Wen is resigning as chief financial officer of Invitae, effective June 30, "to pursue other opportunities." Christine Gorjanc, chair of the audit committee of Invitae's board of directors, will take over as interim CFO on July 1 while the company is conducting a search for a new CFO. Gorjanc previously served as CFO of Arlo Technologies and of Netgear.

Angle has announced that its board chairman, Garth Selvey, plans to leave the company concurrent with the publication of the firm's 2023 interims in September, handing over the position to Jan Groen, currently an independent non-executive director on the board. Selvey initially became chairman in 2007, overseeing the clinical development of Angle's Parsortix cell-based liquid biopsy system, which received US Food and Drug Administration clearance for use in metastatic breast cancer last year.

Groen joined the Angle board in November 2018. He is currently CEO and chairman at Intravacc BV and was previously the CEO of MDxHealth and president and chief operating officer of Agendia.

Vitor Rocha has joined Cepheid as president. He comes to the molecular diagnostics company after 12 years at Phillips, during which he served as CEO of Phillips North America and CEO of the firm's global ultrasound business. Prior to that, he held various leadership positions at GE Healthcare. Roche holds an MBA in business administration and management from Penn State University and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from PUC Minas University in Brazil.

Epigenomics said that Andrew Lukowiak has resigned from his position of president and CSO, and as a member of the executive board, effective May 31. Lukowiak has held these positions since December 2021. The company said that his resignation is in accord with a company restructuring initiated on Feb. 15, 2023, in the wake of the company failing to raise additional capital for a pivotal study to support US Food and Drug Administration approval of its colorectal cancer screening assay.

Bettina Goerner is stepping down as chief data officer of Centogene, effective May 26. In her role, which she has held since 2021, she has been responsible for the German molecular diagnostics company's bio-databank and related data partnerships. Prior to joining Centogene, she was managing director of data products and services at Springer Nature. Goerner holds a master's degree in molecular biology from the International Max Planck Research School.

Quest Diagnostics has appointed Luis Diaz to its board of directors. Diaz is head of the division of solid tumor oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Before that he was a faculty member and physician at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also the founder of several biotechnology companies including Epitope, Inostics, PapGene, and Personal Genome Diagnostics.

Aspira Women's Health has appointed Torsten Hombeck its CFO, replacing interim CFO Marlene McLennan, effective June 15. Hombeck joins Aspira from Akari Therapeutics where he was also CFO. He previously was chief commercial and strategy officer and managing director at Promethera Biosciences and co-CEO and chief business officer at image analysis software company Cytonet. Hombeck also was CFO at biopharmaceutical firm Agennix and GPC Biotech.