CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Omega Therapeutics, a company pioneering a new category of genomic medicine through epigenomic programming, today announced new executive hires in a strategic expansion of the Company’s senior management team. Omega has appointed Barbara Chan as Vice President of Finance, and Joe Newman, Ph.D. as Vice President of Biology.
“This strategic management expansion speaks to Omega’s ability to attract top industry talent and further bolsters our deep expertise to navigate the financial and scientific opportunities ahead. I am proud to welcome both Barbara and Joe to Omega,” said Mahesh Karande, President and Chief Executive Officer of Omega Therapeutics. “I look forward to their leadership and contributions, and am confident that their decades of expertise will prove integral to our success as we build a transformative company.”
As Vice President of Finance, Barbara Chan brings over 20 years of experience as a senior finance leader in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and life sciences industries to Omega. Prior to joining the Omega team, Barbara most recently served as Vice President of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer of Aegerion Pharmaceuticals. Joining Aegerion at a particularly challenging time, Ms. Chan was able to completely transform and rebuild the finance organization. This includes significantly reducing the finance team turnover, establishing an appropriate control environment, improving internal processes, and enhancing both internal and external reporting. During her tenure at the company, Ms. Chan helped to support in the resolution of the significant legal and compliance issues facing the company, and led her team through a complex merger, two product launches outside of the U.S., and played a pivotal role in the ultimate sale of the company.
Prior to that, Ms. Chan spent 13 years with Parexel International, where she oversaw the company’s revenue growth from $320 million to over $2 billion. While at Parexel, she held roles of increasing responsibility, most recently as Global Head of Accounting Services.
Ms. Chan is a CPA with a B.S. in Accountancy and an M.S. in Taxation from Bentley University.
Joining as Vice President of Biology, Dr. Joe Newman has over 20 years of experience leading and supporting all stages of drug development, from lead optimization through to clinical development. Prior to joining Omega, Joe was Vice President of Early Development at Zikani Therapeutics, where he successfully transitioned the company’s focus from infectious diseases to oncology and rare diseases.
Prior to Zikani, he was the head of Biology at Tetraphase Therapeutics, leading the NDA and MAA submissions for Xerava®. Before that, Dr. Newman spent ten years at AstraZeneca in various roles supporting early development and IND submissions for a number of programs, including two products currently in Phase 3 clinical development.
Dr. Newman received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Delaware, his Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Rhode Island and completed fellowships at Tufts Medical School and MIT.
About Omega Therapeutics
Omega Therapeutics is a genomic medicine company advancing novel engineered therapeutics, Omega’s Epigenomic Controllers, enabling controllable epigenomic programming into clinical development for a broad range of indications. These therapeutics deliver Precision Genomic Control™ by controlling Insulated Genomic Domains (IGDs), the fundamental structural and functional units of genomic regulation, by modulating single and multiple gene expression through epigenomic programming. IGDs encompass single or multiple genes and their associated regulatory elements, and are correlated with diverse diseases, including cancer, autoimmune, inflammatory, regenerative, metabolic, neurological conditions and rare diseases. Omega’s Epigenomic Controllers deliver the required potent and durable therapeutic effect by precisely modulating or tuning single or multiple genes, up or down, with high specificity to unleash the human genome’s innate capacity to cure disease without altering native genomic nucleic acid codes. Omega’s Epigenomic Controllers also allow repeat dosing with controllable durability.
Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2017, with a long-term vision to create a programmable, epigenetic-based genomic medicine platform that would identify novel targets, as well as medicines, Omega’s epigenomic programming platform has identified and mapped IGDs and their structure and function in both healthy and diseased states across cell types. This scientific insight drives the discovery and development of Omega’s novel Epigenomic Controllers, intended for clinical development across a range of therapeutic indications. To learn more please visit www.omegatherapeutics.com.
