New CEO for Idenix

Cambridge, MA-based Idenix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IDIX]]), an antiviral drug developer, announced today that it has promoted Ronald Renaud, Jr. to the position of president and chief executive. Renaud, who previously served as Idenix’s CFO and treasurer and most recently its chief business officer, will also take a seat on the company’s board of directors. He replaces former Idenix president, CEO, chairman, and board member Jean-Pierre Sommadossi, who resigned “in order to pursue other interests in the biotechnology field,” according to the company announcement. Idenix’s drug pipeline includes two treatments for hepatitis C, which the FDA recently put on clinical hold, due to elevated liver toxicity in some patients who received both drugs.

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.