Michael W. Hunkapiller, who played a central role in deciphering the human genome, is stepping down as president of Applied Biosystems, the world’s largest supplier of DNA-sequencing machines and other equipment for life sciences research.
Hunkapiller will be succeeded by Catherine M. Burzik, the Foster City-based company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Applied Biosystems, a subsidiary of the Applera Corp., said that Hunkapiller, 55, had decided to retire effective immediately. The change comes as the company has been struggling to adapt to a slowdown that followed the completion of the Human Genome Project about four years ago. Applied Biosystems, one of Foster City’s biggest employers with a huge campus of nearly 20 buildings, supplied much of the equipment that allowed the sequencing of the human genome. The deciphering of the human genome is expected to help the future of personalized medicine.
The departure signaled the end of an era; Hunkapiller had been the company’s public face. He co-invented the DNA sequencing machine while a researcher at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1980s. He joined Applied Biosystems in 1983 when it was a start-up company trying to commercialize the machine.
It was Hunkapiller, along with his boss at Applera, Tony L. White, who decided in the late 1990s to finance an effort by the scientist J. Craig Venter to decipher the human genetic code in competition with the publicly
financed Human Genome Project.
The decision spurred the public project to speed up its work, resulting in a race in which both teams acquired hundreds of $300,000 sequencing machines from Applied Biosystems.
Since that project ended, Applied Biosystems has had much slower growth and weaker profits and has been trying to shift its business to other types of equipment with better prospects. The company reported revenue of $1.7 billion in its last fiscal year.
The company’s news release contained no statement from Hunkapiller explaining his decision to retire. The company said he was on vacation in Hawaii for a couple of weeks and could not be reached for comment.
A spokesman for Applied Biosystems, Peter Dworkin, said that Hunkapiller’s retirement was voluntary. “I can see that externally this may look abrupt,” Dworkin said, but he added, “I can categorically tell you that Mike was not pushed out the door and the decision to retire was entirely his.”
Dworkin said White was not available for interviews. In a statement, White said, “The company is indebted to Mike for his many pioneering contributions over the past two decades.”
An analyst at Pacific Growth Equities, Adam Chazan, said the change reflected the need for a stronger business focus, while Hunkapiller’s forte was research and development.
“What this means is they are trying to focus on righting the ship,” Chazan said. “Now it’s in the hands of other operators, people who are more business-oriented.”
An analyst at SG Cowen, Eric Schmidt, said he hoped the change would be good for the company. He said the company’s research and development activities had become unproductive in recent years.
Applied Biosystems has its own tracking stock. The shares dropped 10 cents on Monday to $19.68.
