UK medical software start-up Cydar brings former Roche head on board

(Reuters) - British medical software start-up Cydar Ltd announced the appointment of several new directors on Thursday, including Franz Humer, the newly retired chairman of Swiss drugmaker Roche, to help develop the business.

Cydar, which has developed cloud-based software to serve up 3D images of a specific patient's blood vessels in X-ray guided endovascular surgery, said Humer would bring in a "wealth of commercialisation" and key insights into helping develop further applications for the software.

Humer, who has joint Swiss and Austrian citizenship, was the driving force behind Roche's takeover in 2009 of U.S. biotech company Genentech, which has produced some of the Swiss firm's top-selling cancer medicines.

Humer, who also has a famously close relationship with Roche's founding and controlling Hoffmann-Oeri family, had previously worked at a former unit of GlaxoSmithKline and at a unit of Merck & Co.

Cydar has also appointed Mervyn Davies, a non-executive director at drinks group Diageo Plc, where Humer was chairman until this year, as non-executive chairman.

James Downing, a former deputy head of European investment banking at JPMorgan has also been appointed as a non-executive director, while John Deanfield, a professor of cardiology at University College London, will head a new scientific and technology advisory board.

Cydar said it received U.S. clearance for use of the software in 2016, which is currently being used at several UK hospitals, including the Royal Free and Guy's & St Thomas in London.

(Reporting by Sanjeeban Sarkar and Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; Editing by Greg Mahlich)