Life Technologies ($LIFE) is losing one of its executives to a diagnostics startup, as the Carlsbad, CA, company's planned $13.6 billion sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific ($TMO) in Massachusetts reaches its final stages. Murali Prahalad left Life to become CEO of Epic Sciences in San Diego, a private cancer diagnostics company. He had been with Life since 2005, most recently as vice president of corporate strategy. Epic is developing diagnostic tests designed to use circulating tumor cells to assess the aggressiveness of a patient's cancer and help personalize the subsequent treatment. Item