Which private company competed with the public HGP?

Celera Genomics was the private company that competed with the publicly funded Human Genome Project. Founded by scientist J. Craig Venter in 1998, Celera pursued a faster sequencing strategy and challenged the international public consortium's approach.

The public project divided work among research centers and released sequence data openly, following principles that encouraged rapid public access. Celera used whole-genome shotgun sequencing: it fragmented DNA, sequenced many pieces, and used powerful computers to assemble overlapping fragments into a genome-wide sequence.

The rivalry accelerated the project and attracted worldwide attention. In 2000, Francis Collins and Craig Venter appeared together at an announcement of a draft human genome sequence. The public consortium completed its working reference sequence in 2003, while Celera's effort demonstrated how private investment and computational methods could speed large-scale biology.

Celera is sometimes confused with Illumina, which later became a major DNA-sequencing technology company. Genentech was a biotechnology company, and 23andMe is a consumer genetic-testing service; neither was the private HGP competitor.