Theracrine, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat metastatic cancer, has appointed Steven Kelly president and CEO. Mr Kelly most recently served as chief commercial officer for BioVex, which was sold to Amgen this year. He was previously the founder and CEO of Innovive Pharmaceuticals.

BioVex, a US-based biotechnology company developing biologics for the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, has appointed Steven Kelly chief commercial officer. He will be responsible for the company's commercial activities as it prepares for the potential launch of its investigational product, OncoVEX GM-CSF. Mr Kelly was most recently CEO of the oncology drug development company Innovive Pharmaceuticals. Before that, he was head of oncology marketing at Sanofi-Aventis.

A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group, "Moving beyond Accutane and Botox", includes profiles of Magen BioSciences, Neosil, Syntopix and TransDerm. Plus these Start-Ups Across Health Care: Cardiak, Innovive Pharmaceuticals, RHEI Pharmaceuticals and ViewRay.

Innovive Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s managers have strong backgrounds in cancer, which they are leveraging collectively to seek early-stage drug candidates for speedy development and marketing. The firm looks for high-value compounds that can be differentiated from others already on the market and guided quickly through development. Innovive presently has three potential cancer treatments in its pipeline.