The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has appointed Louis J. DeGennaro, Ph.D., president and CEO, effective immediately.

DeGennaro has been interim president and CEO of LLS since February 2014 and leads the operations of this $300 million cancer patient advocacy agency with headquarters in White Plains, N.Y. He joined LLS in 2005 and was named chief mission officer in 2009, with responsibility for leadership of LLS's mission functions of research, patient access, education, public policy and advocacy.

DeGennaro has more than 25 years of research, drug development and executive management experience in academic and private sector settings. His previous academic appointments include research group leader, Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, where his laboratory was among the first to clone genes expressed exclusively in the nervous system; and associate professor of neurology and cell biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Previous positions include senior director of molecular genetics at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, where his department contributed to the development of pantoprazole (Protonix) to treat acid reflux disease, Effexor (Venlafaxine) for anxiety and depression and Mylotarg for leukemia; executive vice president for R&D at SynX Pharma, where he was responsible for the development of a point-of-care diagnostic test for congestive heart failure; and research manager at Streck, where he helped develop an FDA-cleared diagnostic test for AIDS/HIV.

DeGennaro was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2012 as a member of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences advisory council, and the Cures Acceleration Network review board at the NIH. He also is on the boards of BioTheryX, an early-stage biotechnology company and the Health Research Alliance, an alliance of non-profit funders of research.