Strategic research organization Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI) appointed Dean Ferrigno as chief financial officer (CFO), replacing Phil Cestaro, who is now president, SCRI Services. SCRI Services specializes in clinical trial administration with a focus on oncology drug development programs. Cestaro, who joined the company in 2006, will continue to be SCRI’s chief information officer in addition to the new position.

Ferrigno comes to SCRI from Daiichi Sanko in Edison, N.J., where he was senior director of research and development for finance and accounting. According to SCRI, one of Ferrigno’s primary objectives as CFO will be to scale operations and build the financial infrastructure to support SCRI’s growth.

Other personnel news from the clinical trial industry:

ACM Global Central Lab recently appointed Nandan Rao as general manager, Asia-Pacific, to manage the company’s expansion efforts in the region. Rao is based in Mumbai, India, and will initially oversee trials conducted with ACM Global’s partner lab in the region. Rao comes to ACM Global from SRL, a large clinical reference laboratory network in India and Southeast Asia, where he was general manager.

Synexus appointed former Parexel executive Jeremy Hickling to the position of senior vice president, portfolio management. Hickling will focus on business development for the company, which does patient recruitment and clinical trial management from 26 dedicated research centers worldwide. Hickling was previously a senior director within Parexel’s late phase PACE group. He also worked as head of UK planning and operations for Biogen Idec.

Quintiles executive Paula Brown Stafford was elected chair-elect of the board of directors of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC). Brown Stafford is executive vice president, integrated clinical services, for the contract research organization (CRO) and has been a member of the CDISC board since 2006. She’s worked for Quintiles for 25 years. CDISC is a non-profit, multidisciplinary organization that has established industry standards to support data collection and analysis in clinical studies.

Carl Spalding has joined the board of directors of PharmaNet Development Group. Spalding is past president and chief operating officer of Parexel.