DiaDexus said it has hired David Foster as its chief financial officer.

Foster will oversee financial and administration functions for heavily-backed diaDexus and will work with senior management in setting overall corporate direction, according to a company press release.

Most recently, Foster served as CFO of Argonaut Technologies, a publicly owned chemical instrument and consumables company. He also was co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cohesion Technologies and worked for several years at Collagen Corp., including four years as CFO.

Founded in 1997, the company previously raised $127.5 million through Essex Capital Management, Kaufmann Fund, Moore Capital Management, Tisch Partners, SmithKline Beecham, Incyte, American Express, Bain Capital's Brookside Fund, Rho and Scale.

In addition, the company named Dino Alfano as executive vice president, sales and marketing.

Based in South San Francisco, Calif., DiaDexus has the only test approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for predicting the risks of ischemic stroke and coronary heart disease. The PLAC test works by measuring the blood's concentration of lipoprotein associated phospholipase A2. The company is also developing blood tests for the detection of early stage cancer.