• Michael Cousins, PhD, has been appointed vice president, research and development, of Health Dialog Data Service (Boston), a wholly owned subsidiary of Health Dialog. Health Dialog is a provider of care management services, including analytic services and telephonic care management support for individuals.

• William Plamondon III has been named CEO of Protein Polymer Technologies (PPTI; San Diego). J. Thomas Parmeter, former CEO, will remain chairman of the board, and Donald Kaplan, PhD, will continue as president and chief operating officer. Plamondon is currently president and CEO of R.I. Heller & Co., a management consulting firm, and serves on the boards of several companies. PPTI is focused on developing products to improve medical and surgical outcomes.

• Michael Doty will step down as senior vice president, finance and CFO of QLT (Vancouver), effective April 15. Doty has been with the company for three years. Cameron Nelson, QLT's vice president, finance will be acting CFO and assume the duties of the chief financial position for the organization. QLT is developing treatments for cancer, eye diseases and dermatological and urological conditions.

• Steve Peltzman has been named CEO of Saliva Diagnostics Systems (New York). He has been working closely with the company as a consultant for the last six months. Peltzman has more than 30 years of experience in technology-based healthcare companies, including helping start Applied BioTechnology, where he served as president. That company was later sold OSI Pharmaceuticals, where Peltzman became chief operating officer of the consolidated entity and later president and COO. Saliva Diagnostic Systems manufactures a rapid point-of-care testing device for infectious diseases, as well as oral fluid specimen collection devices using a volume adequacy indicator for drugs-of-abuse testing and other clinical uses.