Peter Meldrum, co-founder of the Utah-based biotech firm Myriad Genetics and a pioneer of the first commercial test for the breast cancer gene, died Dec. 20 after an accident. He was 71.
A company spokesman said Wednesday that Meldrum died in Salt Lake City from a head injury sustained in a fall while playing touch football with his grandchildren.
The University of Utah-trained chemical engineer and businessman founded Myriad Genetics with Mark Skolnick in May 1991 and became its CEO the following year, leading the company to landmark genetic discoveries nearly a decade before the human genome was fully mapped.