• Bernard “Dino” Alfano, vice president of global sales and service for IRIS International (Chatsworth, California), has been promoted to president of the company’s newly created Diagnostics Business Unit. The company also reported the implementation of a matrix organization where functional heads will oversee their respective area of expertise across all business units. IRIS International is a manufacturer of automated IVD urinalysis systems and medical devices used in hospitals and clinical laboratories worldwide

• Mark Rutherford has joined Lifeline Systems (Framingham, Massachusetts) as vice president of consumer marketing. Rutherford spent more than 10 years at Bose, most recently as director, direct-to-consumer marketing. Lifeline Systems is a provider of personal response services and emergency call systems in the U.S. and Canada, and supplies emergency response equipment and services to owners and developers of independent living, assisted living and continuing care retirement communities across North America.

• Gregory Shipp, MD, has joined Nanosphere (Northbrook, Illinois), a nanotechnology based life sciences company, as its vice president of medical affairs. Most recently, Shipp was medical director and chief medical officer for i-STAT, a division of Abbott.

• Louis Fournier has been named general manager, commercial wire products, at Nortech Systems (Minneapolis), a provider of electronics manufacturing services, in charge of the company’s facilities in Bemidji, Minnesota, and Monterrey, Mexico. His office will be in Bemidji. Most recently, Fournier was director of North American procurement for IMI.

• Albert Holt IV, MD, has been named chief medical officer for complex care for ParadigmHealth (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey). Holt, who has served as a ParadigmHealth medical specialist consultant since 2003, will assume the responsibilities of the current chief medical officer, William Thar, MD. Holt, a certified internist, is completing his critical care medicine fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. He currently is an intensivist at Howard County and Laurel Hospitals, and before that was the medical director of the New England Baptist Hospital hospitalist program and ambulatory care unit. ParadigmHealth is a provider of disease management services for intensive and clinically complex patients.

• PBI Technology (Seattle), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacific Biometrics (PBME), has formed a new leadership team. Dr. Mario Ehlers, chief medical officer of PBME, took the lead as PBI Technology’s president, chief operating officer and a director as of June 1. Ehlers is a physician-scientist with 11 years of experience in academic research and seven years in the biopharmaceutical industry. Ronald Helm will serve as chairman of the board. Helm currently also is chairman and CEO of PBME, serving in those capacities since August 2002. Kenneth Waters will serve as director of strategic planning and as vice chairman of the board. Waters also is director of strategic planning for PBME, serving in that post since September 2002. PBI Technology was created in March 2004 to commercialize four molecular diagnostic technologies formerly held by PBME and recently transferred to the subsidiary: the Osteopatch, a non-invasive device for osteoporosis testing; the SalivaSac, a non-invasive device for measuring glucose levels; LIDA, a platform technology for DNA amplification; and Cell Viability, for cell identification.

• Kelly Elliott, RN, has joined Spectranetics (Colorado Springs, Colorado) as vice president of clinical affairs. Elliott most recently served as senior director, clinical applications research and training development at Stereotaxis. Spectranetics manufactures single-use medical devices used in minimally invasive surgical procedures within the cardiovascular system in conjunction with its excimer laser system.

• Paul Lopez has been named vice president of SurModics (Eden Prairie, Minnesota) and president of the company’s ophthalmology business unit. Most recently, Lopez was president and CEO of Valley Forge Pharmaceuticals. SurModics is a provider of surface modification and drug delivery technologies to the healthcare industry.