David Persing, MD, PhD, will join Cepheid (Sunnyvale, California), effective Aug. 29, as executive vice president, chief medical and technical officer, with responsibility for research and development. Persing has been a member of Cepheid’s board of directors since April 2004, and will remain on the board. He most recently served as senior vice president and chief scientific officer at Corixa. Cepheid is a manufacturer of integrated systems that enable genetic assessment.

Charles Slaton, president and chief operating officer of MedCath (Charlotte, North Carolina), has been selected by the company board to become CEO, effective Oct. 1. John Casey, who has served as CEO since September 2003, will remain as chairman. Before joining MedCath, Slaton served as senior vice president of Tenet, with financial and operational responsibilities for 15 acute and rehabilitation hospitals located throughout Texas. MedCath owns and operates 12 hospitals with a total of 727 licensed beds, in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas. It also provides cardiovascular care services in diagnostic and therapeutic facilities through mobile cardiac catheterization laboratories.

Charlotte Sebastian has joined Medtox Scientific (St. Paul, Minnesota) as director of human resources. Most recently, she was human resources manager for the Minnesota operations of Mentor, and previously was with Medtronic. Medtox is a supplier of specialized laboratory and point-of-collection devices, with a focus on analysis of drugs of abuse, therapeutic drugs and biological and agricultural toxins. It also provides employment drug screening and occupational health testing.