Cetero Research has named James Carlson, Pharm.D to serve as its chief executive officer. The appointment follows the U.S. District Bankruptcy Court’s approval of the sale of Cetero to its investor group, led by Freeport Financial. The sale was finalized on June 20, 2012, after the company’s period in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of the corporate reorganization, Cetero has been renamed PRACS Institute.

Dr. Carlson is a life science industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in early phase research. He co-founded and served as chief executive officer of a legacy operation of Cetero Research, based in Fargo, ND, from 1983 to 2006, where he oversaw the conduct of more than 450 studies per year across a range of therapeutic indications and study types. The Fargo facility is a 250,000-sq.-ft. clinical pharmacology unit with specialization in cardiac safety and healthy participants for bioavailability, bioequivalence, preclinical and clinical dermatology studies. The company boasts that this facility is the largest Phase I unit in the world. PRACS will move its headquarters from Cary, NC, to Fargo.

In addition to Dr. Carlson’s appointment, Mark Ubert, CPA, MBA, has been named chief financial officer. Mr. Ubert joined Cetero in 2009 as corporate controller, bringing extensive experience in financial leadership, corporate treasury, mergers and acquisitions, accounting and operational performance improvement within the life science and healthcare industries. Mr. Ubert is responsible for the overall financial operations of the company, including corporate finance, treasury, financial planning and analysis, tax, accounting internal audit and risk management.

John Pottier has been named executive vice president, Business Development. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Mr. Pottier brings significant expertise in early phase clinical knowledge and R&D business requirements. Joining PRACS from Worldwide Clinical Trials, Mr. Pottier previously served in business development roles at Novum Research, Cetero Research and PRACS Institute, Ltd., after beginning his career at the Clinical Research Foundation, now part of Quintiles Transnational.

“This is an exciting time for our new company. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we look forward to strengthening our organization and integrating service offerings,” said Dr. Carlson. “We will continue to uphold the company’s commitment to the delivery of reliable, quality data and on-time study results, as well as the safety of our study participants.”