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23andMe President Andy Page is departing

He will remain on the board of the personal genomics company.

The Fast Company Innovation Festival - Data + Drugs: The New Evolution Of Drug Making With 23andMe And Sprout
The Fast Company Innovation Festival - Data + Drugs: The New Evolution Of Drug Making With 23andMe And Sprout
23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki
Brad Barket / Getty Images for Fast Company

23andMe President Andy Page, who has been in his role since 2013, will depart the company in December, according to a letter sent to employees by CEO Anne Wojcicki. It was unclear where Page is going, if anywhere, but he will remain as a board member of the personal genomics company.

In the letter, Wojcicki said that “Andy and I recognize 23andMe is at a stage of strength and maturity where it would benefit from one single leader. Moving forward, Andy’s direct reports will report to me.”

In his tenure, Page spent much of the time scaling the consumer business and its management team, tripling its employee base to more than 300 and growing its database of genetic information. He had been in charge of a wide swath of 23andMe, including product and engineering, marketing, finance, business development, laboratory operations and legal and regulatory issues.

Andy Page is leaving 23andMe as president.
Andy Page is leaving 23andMe as president.

Page came to 23andMe from the Gilt Groupe, where he also served as president. Previous to that, he has been CFO at both PlayPhone and StubHub. He also worked at Panasas, ONI Systems and Robertson Stephens.

Almost as soon as Page arrived, he and Wojcicki had their hands full with a full-blown crisis. After receiving a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration in November of 2013 about the efficacy of its direct-to-consumer health testing kits, it had to stop selling them in the U.S. Two years later, 23andMe brought itself into compliance by limiting the information it could provide to a smaller number of screenable diseases and was able to offer the $199 genetic “spit” tests again in 2015. It also offers its service in Canada as well as in some European countries, and has a research services business.

But 23andMe recently stopped its efforts in developing “next-generation sequencing,” a new arena in the field that other startups like Helix and Color are working on, to focus on its core offering.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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