MicroCHIPS, Nimbit, and Xcellerex Hire New CEOs

Erin Kutz4/13/10Comments (1)Follow @erkutz

There’s the old saying that things happen in threes. That’s true this week in Boston, where three tech companies have announced new CEOs. Two of the moves came in the life science sector, at MicroCHIPS and Xcellerex, and the third involved online music marketing site Nimbit. Read below for the details on each company’s new chief executive hire.

—Bedford, MA-based MicroCHIPS, a maker of wireless medical implants with chemical sensors or drug reservoirs, announced its appointment of Ajit Gill as president and CEO. Gill comes from Auspex Pharmaceuticals, and previously led Nektar Therapeutics, a biotech startup he helped take public. MicroCHIPS pulled in a $16.5 million Series C round in January and is slated to take its technology from development to clinical testing later this year. Gill replaces the company’s founder and CEO John Santini, Jr., who will continue to consult for MicroCHIPS and has become CEO of On Demand Therapeutics, a joint venture between MicroCHIPS and InterWest Partners that is working on novel technology for the delivery of drugs to the eye.

—Nimbit, an online portal for directly connecting musicians, managers, and music labels to fans, announced it hired board member Bob Cramer as chief executive officer. Cramer, who has held management positions in a range of online and software companies and will continue to serve as chairman of Nimbit, joins the Framingham, MA-based company’s co-founders Phil Antoniades and Patrick Faucher, who will move from CEO to chief technology officer. Nimbit packages marketing, sales, and distribution for musicians, through offerings such as e-mail and social media outreach, merchandise and ticket sales, and fan and marketing analytics.

—Xcellerex, a Marlborough, MA-based company developing methods for manufacturing biomolecules more efficiently, announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific veteran Guy Broadbent has been appointed as president, CEO, and a member of the board of directors. He succeeds Joseph Zakrzewski, who will remain chairman of the company’s board of directors. The hiring of Broadbent, who ran Thermo Fisher’s laboratory products division and worked as a senior vice president of corporate development, comes as Xcellerex moves into the next phase of commercializing its technology, the company says.

Erin Kutz is an Associate Editor for Xconomy. You can reach her by e-mail at ekutz@xconomy.com or by phone at (617) 252-0700, or follow her on Twitter at @erkutz.