People In Brief

Diagnostic exec to take charge at Roche: Roche Diagnostics CEO Severin Schwan will succeed Franz Humer as CEO of Roche next March, the drug and diagnostics giant announced July 19. Humer will remain chairman of the company's board. A new diagnostics chief has yet to be announced. Schwan is leading Roche's $3 billion hostile takeover of Ventana Medical Systems, an acquisition aimed at providing the company with platform technology for tissue-based diagnostic tests to pair with targeted cancer drugs (1"The Gray Sheet" July 2, 2007, p. 10). The exec has also led several other acquisitions in the diagnostics unit during the first half of the year, including the purchase of high-throughput firm 454 Life Sciences, research microarray firm NimbleGen and BioVeris...