• The California Healthcare Institute (CHI; La Jolla, California) has appointed Sandra Pizarro as VP of state government affairs. For the past four years, Pizarro has worked as a lobbyist for KP Public Affairs. CHI is a non-profit public policy research organization for California’s biomedical R&D industry.

• Cook Medical (Bloomington, Indiana) has promoted Christina Anné from global leader of its women’s health unit to VP of the unit. Scott Dougall was named VP of Cook Medical, Inc., the shared service provider for Cook Group’s North American operations, and took on a new role as the North American sales leader for Cook’s critical care strategic business unit. Dougall most recently was based in Spain as regional sales manager of the company’s peripheral intervention division. Dave Volz was promoted from director of operations to VP of manufacturing operations for Cook Inc. Cook has seven business units: aortic intervention, critical care, endoscopy, peripheral intervention, surgery, urology, and women’s health.

• Richard Brounstein has been named CFO of NewCardio (San Jose, California). Previously, Brounstein was CFO for Certicom. NewCardio’s software and hardware products and services are intended to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiovascular disease, as well as cardiac safety assessment of drugs under development.