Brownian motion: Personnel moves in the life sciences

NeurAxon, a Waltham, Mass., biotech developing new pain drugs, named Lawrence Bloch as its new CEO. Bloch was previously chief financial officer of NitroMed, a company best known for BiDil, the first drug approved specifically to treat heart disease in African-Americans. BiDil sales haven’t really taken off, and NitroMed’s stock has fallen considerably since its recent high in February. Bloch left his position at NitroMed almost a year and a half ago.

Amira Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego biotech focused on inflammatory disease, appointed Robert Baltera as its first CEO. Baltera previously worked at Amgen in a number of positions, ranging from his start as a research associate to vice president of corporate and contract manufacturing. Interestingly enough, one of his career highlights at Amgen was leading the team that won approval for the company’s arthritis drug Kineret, which underperformed so badly that Amgen doesn’t even list it on its Web site.

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":21832,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"A"}']

Alan Levy, the founder of Northstar Neuroscience, joined Frazier Healthcare Ventures as a venture partner. Northstar raised $112 million last year in a public offering. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s John Cook has more.

Global Life Science Ventures, a VC firm in Munich, promoted Stephen McCormick to managing director.