Pall elected Cheryl W. Grise, former president of Northeast Utilities’ Utility Group, in August.

Dr. James D. Watson resigned from the Board of Pall in November.

VWR appointed six new Board members: Robert L. Barchi, president of Thomas Jefferson University; Edward A. Blechschmidt, a director of Healthsouth, Lionbridge Technologies and Columbia Laboratories; Thompson Dean, comanaging partner and CEO of Avista Capital Partners; Dr. Robert P. DeCresce, chair of the department of Pathology at Rush Medical College; Carlos del Salto, former senior vice president of Baxter World Trade; and Robert J. Zollars, CEO of Vocera Communications.

In September, Praxair, Welco-CGI Gas Technologies and GT&S agreed to form a gas distribution joint venture, which will have an estimated $180 million in sales.

In September, OneMed, a CapMan company, agreed to acquire 75% of Hand-Prod, a Polish wholesaler of healthcare products with €100 million ($138.1 million) in sales.

William Kroll, CEO of Matheson Tri-Gas, a Taiyo Nippon Sanso company, will step down effective January 1, 2008, to become chairman. James Samples, president and COO, will become president and CEO. Scott Kallman, general manager of the Industrial Gas Group, will become COO. Rick Kowey, general manager of Global Specialty Gases (GSG) and R&D and Corporate Innovation, will become chief marketing officer, while remaining general manager of GSG.

In October, BLD Sciences (Best Lab Deals) acquired PGC Scientifics Distribution from Continental Lab Products, a Pelican Life Sciences company.

Continental Lab Products named Dave Barth president, effective November 5.

Merck KGaA named Klaus Bischoff, country manager of the Merck Group in Taiwan, head of the Performance & Life Science Chemicals Division effective November 1.