Name: Everett Cunningham
New title: Chief Commercial Officer, Illumina
Previous title: Chief Commercial Officer, Exact Sciences
Illumina has appointed Everett Cunningham as its chief commercial officer, ending a six-month search for a permanent executive. Cunningham is joining Illumina from Exact Sciences, a cancer diagnostics company.
Susan Tousi created the C-suite vacancy when she left Illumina to become CEO of liquid biopsy company Delfi Diagnostics in January. Illumina made Bas Verhoef, its head of Europe, interim chief commercial officer while it searched for a permanent successor to Tousi.
The search led Illumina to Exact, which is best known for its home colon cancer screening test. Cunningham joined Exact in 2021 as chief commercial officer. Earlier in his career, Cunningham held positions at GE Healthcare, Quest Diagnostics and Pfizer.
At Illumina, Cunningham will build, guide and manage a commercial organization that failed to achieve the 6% to 9% revenue growth in the core business that Illumina targeted going into 2023. The company expects sales at its core business, which excludes Grail, to be flat this year.
Exact disclosed the departure of Cunningham alongside details of other changes to its commercial organization. The company is moving its commercial group under its screening and precision oncology teams, which Jake Orville and Brian Baranick, respectively, will continue to lead. Exact expects the changes to enhance “agility, transparency and responsiveness to patient and customer needs.”
Cunningham’s departure comes six months after Jeff Elliott announced plans to step down as Exact’s CFO for personal reasons. Exact appointed Aaron Bloomer to replace Elliott.
