• Alice Varisano will serve as CFO and vice president of human resources for Excel Technology (East Setauket, New York), a manufacturer of laser systems and electro-optical components. Prior to joining Excel, Varisano was a principal with Ernst & Young.
• Paul Echenberg has been named chairman of the board of E-Z-EM (Lake Success, New York), a manufacturer of contrast agents for gastrointestinal radiology, replacing co-founder Howard Stern. Stern has been named chairman emeritus and will remain on the company's board. During Stern's tenure at E-Z-EM, he co-founded both Surgical Dynamics and AngioDynamics, which was spun off to E-Z-EM shareholders last October. Surgical Dynamics was sold to U.S. Surgical in 1996. Echenberg has been a director of E-Z-EM since 1987. He has served as chairman of the board of E-Z-EM Canada since 1994 and was chairman of the board of Surgical Dynamics. He was also elected as chairman of the board of AngioDynamics in February 2004.
• W. Jeffrey Allard, PhD, has been named vice president and chief scientific officer for Fujirebo Diagnostics (FDI; Malvern, Pennsylvania), a developer of in vitro diagnostics, Allard previously was vice president of clinical research and development at Immunicon. FDI manufactures diagnostics, with an emphasis in oncology.
• Charles Craig has been named president of the Georgia Biomedical Partnership (GBP; Atlanta). Craig previously served as the author and editor of Ernst & Young's Global Biotechnology Reports, director of publications for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO; Washington) and managing editor of BioWorld Today, sister publication of Medical Device Daily. Craig is GBP's second president and the first to occupy the position full-time. GBP, founded in 1989, is an affiliate of BIO and represents Georgia's life sciences industry.