With the process of undoing its acquisition of Grail underway, Illumina is making plans for its future without the blood test maker.
Key to those plans will be Illumina’s new chief commercial officer: The DNA sequencing giant this week announced that it has appointed Everett Cunningham, who boasts more than a decade’s worth of experience in leadership roles at other major medtech companies, to step into the role, effective June 10.
Cunningham will take over the CCO title from Bas Verhoef, who has held it on an interim basis since the start of this year. After shedding the temporary title, Verhoef will continue on in his primary role as Illumina’s head of the Europe region.
The commercial chief spot had previously been filled by Susan Tousi, who had spent nearly 12 years at Illumina, including as VP of engineering, senior VP of chief product development and, as of May 2021, CCO. Illumina announced (PDF) her departure in early January of this year, and, a day later, Delfi Diagnostics confirmed Tousi had come aboard as chief executive of the blood test maker.
Cunningham arrives at Illumina fresh off an almost three-year stint in the CCO role at Exact Sciences, maker of the popular Cologuard test. Before that, he served as president and CEO of GE HealthCare’s U.S. and Canada region and senior VP of commercial of Quest Diagnostics.
The bulk of his career, however, was spent at Pfizer: Cunningham put in more than 20 years at the Big Pharma, moving through several leadership roles across its commercial organization, spanning business development, sales and global outreach.
“I am thrilled to welcome Everett to the Illumina leadership team as we work to deliver on Illumina’s mission to improve human health by unlocking the power of the genome,” CEO Jacob Thaysen, Ph.D., said in Monday’s announcement. “He brings tremendous commercial leadership experience to the role, along with a passion for solving some of the world’s most pressing healthcare challenges.”
Thaysen continued, “I am looking forward to seeing all that he and our global commercial teams can do together, capitalizing on our leadership position in next generation sequencing, and delivering the products, services, and solutions that address customers’ most pressing needs.”
Cunningham will join Illumina amid a period of significant transition for the company, as it’s currently in the process of making good on both European and U.S. regulators’ orders that it separate out Grail, which it moved forward in acquiring in 2021 before antitrust reviews on both sides of the pond were complete.
The separation is slated to be complete by the end of this month, and the approved divestment plan allows Illumina to send Grail off either by selling it to another party or supporting its spinning out into an independent, standalone company.
It’s been a rocky road to that conclusion, and Cunningham isn’t the only new addition to Illumina’s leadership team: A bitter proxy battle last year led by activist investor Carl Icahn resulted in some changes to the company’s board and ultimately led longtime CEO Francis deSouza to step down from his post last summer, with Thaysen taking the helm a few months later.