Genetics in Healthcare

Sequenom announced this week that CEO Harry Hixson plans to retire from that position in June, at the time of the company's stockholder meeting. Current President and Chief Operating Officer William Welch will assume Hixson's position upon his retirement. Hixson will continue to serve as chairman of the firm's board of directors, a title he has held since 2003. Welch also will be nominated to serve on the board at the annual meeting, Sequenom said. Also, CFO Paul Maier also will retire from his job in June, but will continue to work with the company as a consultant. Current VP and Chief Accounting Officer Carolyn Beaver will replace Maier as CFO upon his retirement. She previously was corporate VP and controller of Beckman Coulter. In addition, Dirk van den Boom will be promoted to be chief scientific and strategy officer. He has been with Sequenom since 1998, and he recently was the company's executive VP of R&D and chief technology officer.

Former Life Technologies executive Paul Grossman has joined Telegraph Hill Partners as a venture partner. Grossman previously was head of global strategy and corporate development at Life Tech, and he also held the same position at Invitrogen. Before he joined Invitrogen, Grossman held a variety of leadership roles at Applied Biosystems, including as a research scientist and patent attorney, VP of intellectual property, and VP of strategy and business development.

Becton Dickinson has appointed Amit Bhalla to be VP of global strategy and development. In the role, Bhalla will work with the senior management team to develop BD's overall strategy. Bhalla joins BD from Citi, where he has been director of equity research for life science tools and medical technology since 2006. Before joining Citi, he was VP of equity research for emerging medical technology at Morgan Stanley, and a technical operations R&D associate at Johnson and Johnson.

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Genetics in Healthcare