William J. Rutter, a scientist who helped create the modern biotechnology industry as a founder of a company that turned breakthroughs from academic labs into commercial medicines, including the first genetically engineered vaccine and a therapy for multiple sclerosis, died on July 11 at his home in San Francisco. He was 97.
His daughter, Cindy Rutter, said the cause was complications of urothelial carcinoma, a cancer of the urinary system.
In 1981, Dr. Rutter and two University of California colleagues founded the Chiron Corporation in Emeryville, Calif. Along with the South San Francisco start-up Genentech, it established the Bay Area as the country’s biotech capital, a counterpart to the computing boom in Silicon Valley.
Chiron specialized in recombinant DNA technology, also known as gene splicing — the technique of snipping a gene from one organism and inserting it into the DNA of another organism.
In 1968 Dr. Rutter, a biochemist, was recruited by the University of California, San Francisco, to help transform it into a research powerhouse with funding from the National Institutes of Health. He helped pioneer the science of genetic engineering — a foundation of the biotech industry that set it apart from traditional pharmaceutical development.
He started Chiron (pronounced KY-ron) with Pablo D. T. Valenzuela, a fellow biochemist at U.C.S.F., and Edward E. Penhoet, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Dr. Rutter was chairman of the board. The company was named for a centaur in Greek mythology known for his skill in the healing arts
