Management

Richard C. Tarbox III,   President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Tarbox, is a industry veteran with more than 35 years experience in global sourcing, marketing, operations and business development in the healthcare market.  Mr. Tarbox has held numerous executive leadership positions in the healthcare industry, most notably with Quidel Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Ostex International, Inc., AHSC/Baxter International/Cardinal Health and Marion Laboratories, Inc. Mr. Tarbox is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has served on boards of emerging technology companies including, Ostex, DenOptix, Metrika Laboratories, BioSeparations and currently serves on the BOD of ClearData Networks, Inc. He has served the industry as a member of the Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA) Educational Foundation BOD.

Patrick T. Petruno,  Founder and Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Petruno received his BSEE and MSEE degrees in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1976 and 1978 respectively. He has 30 years experience in the electronic and opto-electronic industry, developing new businesses utilizing opto-electronic technologies. In 2004, within Agilent Technologies’ Semiconductor Products Group, Mr. Petruno developed the concepts to form a business initiative developing and marketing highly sensitive, inexpensive, handheld optical based instrumentation for medical diagnostic applications. In 2005, the newly formed business initiative was divested along with the Semiconductor Products Group to form Avago Technologies, where the business became an independent operation, Rapid Diagnostics.  In 2007, he led a successful spinout of Rapid Diagnostics to form Alverix, Inc. Mr. Petruno’s extensive track record for developing new businesses includes high speed digital transmission systems, digital cellular radio modulation, GaAs IC’s, IRDA physical layer, Fiber Optic Transceivers, and Silicon ASIC’s. Collectively these new businesses have resulted in over $1B in new revenue for Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies.

Tong Xie, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer and VP Research and Development

Dr. Xie received his Ph.D. degree in optical sciences from the University of Arizona.  He has over 18 years experience in R&D and technology management.  Dr. Xie was a R&D Section manager at Avago Technologies and held various technical and management positions in Eastman Kodak, Kaiser Electronics and Agilent Technologies.  His expertise and experiences span consumer electronics, high speed communication systems, and test and measurement technologies.  Dr. Xie is the inventor of the Laser Mouse.  He holds more than 30 patents and patent applications.

James P. O'Connell,  VP Business Development

Mr. O'Connell has eight years of operational, financial and entrepreneurial experience in the life sciences. During business school, Mr. O'Connell served as Summer Associate for Quaker BioVentures and Commons Capital, and also completed an internship at Liquidia Technologies in business development. Prior, he was in the Corporate Ventures/Business Development group of Becton Dickinson, a F500 medical technology firm. From 1998-2001, Mr O'Connell held progressive positions in Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Chemdex, a pioneering startup that raised $450M in financing. Mr. O'Connell started his career in R&D at Biosite and helped developed the firm’s blockbuster BNP panel diagnosing congestive heart failure ($600+M sales to date).  Mr. O’Connell is also concurrently a Senior Associate in the Life Sciences Group at Safeguard Scientifics.

Mr. O'Connell received a BS in biochemistry from Virginia Tech and served as class president for four years. Mr. O'Connell also holds an MBA from the Wharton School, where he led the University of Pennsylvania’s $70K Business Plan Competition and received a fellowship in healthcare entrepreneurship. 

William L. Bilobran,  VP Quality and Regulatory Affairs 

Mr. Bilobran has a Masters degree in Physics from Kent State University.  He has 30 years of experience with Hewlett Packard Company, Agilent Technologies, and Avago Technologies, including roles as Software Engineer, Product Engineer, R&D Product Engineer and 2 years as Applications & Product Engineering Manager stationed in Penang, Malaysia. Mr. Bilobran has completed 160 hours of Six Sigma Black Belt Quality training by Motorola University and 100 hours of FDA cGMP training through American Society for Quality. Mr. Bilobran has a wide range of product experience including managing the Agilent Technologies Product Engineering department associated with the introduction of Optical Mouse Navigation Products.  

Pin Chai Chen,  VP Manufacturing and General Manager of Alverix Malaysia

Mr. Chen graduated from University of Alberta, AB, Canada with a degree in Electrical Engineering.  He currently resides in Penang, Malaysia, site of Alverix’s manufacturing operation. Mr. Chen is responsible for manufacturing, test, contract manufacturer management and order fulfillment. Mr. Chen has a total of 16 years manufacturing experience, including 10 years in Operations Management supporting high volume product shipments ranging from Flash Memory IC’s, Hard Disk Drives and various optoelectronics products such as Optical Transceivers, Navigation Sensors and Camera Modules.