Richard "Ric" C. Tarbox III has been named Chief Executive Officer of Alverix, Inc., a leader in developing next generation instrument and connectivity platforms for diagnostic testing. Tarbox has more than 30 years of experience in the health care industry in diagnostics and medical devices, most recently as VP of Strategy Management at Cardinal Health. His appointment advances the company's efforts to provide central laboratory quality results right at the point of care.

"Migration to 'near patient testing' is the new catch-phrase, and as much as primary care givers and consumers would like the convenience of rapid home testing, very few manufacturers have been able to meet the precision, portability and connectivity standards of the FDA or medical diagnostics professionals," Tarbox told DOTmed News. "Alverix is working hand-in-hand with key assay developers to produce a variety of integrated systems that will deliver [this capability]."

Alverix, once part of Hewlett Packard and later spun off from Agilent in 2007, is well positioned with its hand-held laboratory instruments designed to measure diagnostic assays at the point of care. The company's instrumentation enables central laboratory quality results to be delivered at or near any patient setting. Until now, this level of performance required expensive, immobile bench-top instrumentation. By contrast, Alverix's detection devices combine optoelectronics and sophisticated signal processing algorithms in a portable, battery operated instrument to generate more precise results, for a fraction of the cost and turnaround time of traditional methods.

Alverix's target markets include infectious disease, cardiac markers, cholesterol/lipids, glucose and hemoglobin, and drugs of abuse, among others.

The potential of precise, portable devices with advanced data management and connectivity features to lower health care costs and improve patient outcomes is very real, Tarbox suggested. "By moving testing out of the core hospital lab and nearer to the patient, while still providing the precision and data capabilities of lab instrumentation, significant overhead and labor costs can be avoided. Meanwhile, improved turnaround times associated with near patient testing will allow primary care providers to improve their practice of medicine," he said.

"Alverix has a tremendous potential for success, and that is what attracted me to the company and compelled me to join the team," Tarbox said.

In addition to near patient testing, data capture and reporting also presents opportunities for the company.

"By partnering with the best assay development companies in the diagnostic industry, we can help drive the long-anticipated migration of critical testing to near patient sites throughout the hospital, clinics, and physicians' offices, and ultimately, into the patient's home," he said.

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