PARIS ¿ Following the recent appointment of a new CEO, Philippe Ballero, the Belgian company Tibotec-Virco NV has reorganized its activities, essentially concentrating them at its headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium, and in Rockville, Md., the home of its U.S. subsidiary, while retaining operating subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Tibotec-Virco, which was created last March through the merger of the drug discovery company Tibotec and the molecular diagnostics firm Virco, describes its core business as the development of individualized disease management products and services in HIV, other infectious diseases and cancer.

While continuing to run the two sides of its business separately through newly created specialist divisions ¿ Tibotec Therapeutics and Virco Diagnostics ¿ the company has now centralized all corporate functions and basic research at Mechelen. At the same time, it has moved its HIV genotyping operations and data processing activities to Mechelen from Cambridge, UK, and Dublin, Ireland, respectively. It also has closed its Baltimore research center and consolidated its U.S. diagnostics activities and research at the Rockville site.

In addition, it has set up a new clinical research and medical affairs facility in Research Triangle Park, N.C., which will be the focus of the company¿s therapeutic drug monitoring services. The center is headed up by Neil Graham, vice president of clinical research and medical affairs. He is seconded by a recent recruit, Stephen Piscitelli, who was formerly with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and whom Tibotec-Virco describes as an international authority on pharmacokinetics and drug interactions.