Kendle International has promoted Ken Hintze to the position of vice president of global clinical safety and pharmacovigilance, up from his previous role in the division as senior director.

Rival contract research organisation (CRO) Quintiles has moved Jay Norman into the role of president of Quintiles Consulting, which it is currently pushing for expansion.

Tracy Tsuetaki, whom Norman has replaced, has now moved on to the position of global head of corporate strategic initiatives and change management.

Irish CRO Icon has also made a recent appointment, bringing Dr David Shaw on board to fill the newly-created post of senior director, EU Regulatory Affairs at Icon Development Solutions, devised to "strengthen the division's capabilities in early and late stage regulatory consulting and post-licensing services".

AMRI has recruited Steve Jennings as senior vice president of sales, marketing and business development. He will now handle all of AMRI's global sales teams across the US, Asia and Europe.

Meanwhile in the world of big pharma, the big recruitment news this week was of course the appointment of a new CEO at pharma heavyweight GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The UK firm announced that the current president of its European pharmaceutical division, Andrew Witty, would be taking over the top job following the retirement of current incumbent Jean-Pierre Garnier at the end of 2008.

Witty was the winning candidate from three internal contenders for the role, and there has been much media speculation as to how the two unsuccessful candidates could react to the decision.

Chris Viehbacher, head of GSK's US business, and David Stout, president of pharma operations, were seen as perhaps more experienced choices, and there has been some speculation as to how GSK will hang on to these top employees following the Witty appointment.

Pfizer, too, has been shifting things about in HR over the last week or so, with a number of top appointments.

Last Wednesday the company announced that current Microsoft employee, Tanya Clemons, would be joining the firm as vice president and chief talent officer from November. The next day, Pfizer named Martin Mackay as its new head of R&D and Briggs Morrison as head of clinical development.

Mackay has been tasked with raising productivity, increasing collaborations, expanding the firm's biopharma pipeline as well as squeezing the most value out of its existing pipeline.