Immune Pharmaceuticals has appointed Dr Paul Nadler acting executive vice-president of R&D, and chief medical officer. In this position, Dr Nadler will be responsible for overseeing the development of Immune's immunology and oncology pipeline. Dr Nadler has been an interim or acting CMO (or similar) for a variety of early stage biotechnology companies such as OSI Pharmaceuticals, Fast Track Systems, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, CGI Pharma, Phylogix, Aveo, Dicerna and others. 

A new rare disease drug accelerator has launched in the US with $16 million in financing and big plans to spin-out up to five new companies in the next four years, developing orphan-focused products.

The Massachusetts start-up has plans to create five new companies that will focus on rare disease work through an innovative business model that will de-risk the assets before spinning them out into separate biotech companies.