MANUFACTURERSGlaxoSmithKline R&D chief Tadataka “Tachi” Yamada will retire from his post on June 1 to take up the role of global health executive director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Moncef Slaoui, GSK’s current head of worldwide business development and external research alliances, will replace Yamada. Slaoui has helped GSK restructure its R&D operations “to enhance drug discovery and accelerate product development” on products including the recently approved vaccine Rotarix for infantile gastroenteritis, and Cervarix for cervical cancer, the drugmaker said in a statement.Manhattan Pharmaceuticals named Alan Harris as chief medical officer. Harris was most recently head of the worldwide medical endocrine care group at Pfizer. Prior to that he served in a number of capacities at Schering-Plough from 1995 to 2004, most recently as VP of global healthcare research and outcomes.Sirna Therapeutics named Gregory Weaver as SVP and CFO. Weaver most recently served as CFO of Nastech Pharmaceutical Company.Sirtris Pharmaceuticals has named Garen Bohlin as COO. Bohlin joined Sirtris from Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, where he served as CEO from the company’s founding in 1999 until 2005. Cortex Pharmaceuticals named Mark Varney as COO and chief scientific officer. Prior to joining Cortex, Varney held senior-level positions at Sepracor, where he was VP and head of discovery, and at Bionomics, where he was VP of drug discovery. AGENCIES  CommonHealth has announced the addition of four new hires. Teri Park joins as VP, business development. Most recently, Park was employed at Access Worldwide in New York as VP, business development in the area of medical education. Frank Tirone joins as a business intelligence analyst. Prior to joining CommonHealth, Tirone worked for Fisher Scientific in Fair Lawn as data warehouse manager. Margarita Oganesyan comes to CommonHealth as a financial administrator. Most recently, Oganesyan was employed at EchoStar/Dish Network in Pine Brook as a multilingual customer-service representative. Anita Iyengar joins CommonHealth as a Java/WebSphere portal developer. Iyengar was previously employed at Panasonic in Secaucus as a Java/portal developer. KPR has hired Colleen Katzman as EVP, director of client services. Katzman joins KPR from fellow Omnicom agency Harrison & Star, where she was client service director.Ferguson, CommonHealth’s founding professional advertising and promotion unit, has announced five promotions and one new hire. Sheila Munson has been promoted from senior copywriter to copy supervisor. Ryan Orsini has been named account supervisor from his previous position of senior account executive. Adam Schirmer has advanced from senior art director to group art director. Douglas Bratman has been promoted to senior copywriter from his previous position of copywriter. Cameron Haggerty has advanced from assistant account executive to account executive. Scott Kim joins Ferguson as an art director. Previously, he held the position of senior creative designer at Aetrex Worldwide, a footwear company located in Teaneck, NJ. Chamberlain Communications Group has hired healthcare public relations veteran David Kyne as SVP. Kyne comes to Chamberlain after almost five years at GCI Group, a New York agency that is part of Grey Global Group, where he was SVP and global relationship manager for Boehringer Ingelheim.DMW, a full-service direct response advertising agency, has announced three new hires. Mary Schwemmer has joined as project manager. Prior to this, Schwemmer was a traffic production specialist for AstraZeneca. Judy Lynn Weaver has been hired as proofreader. Frank Iacono has joined the agency as interactive services manager.