Dr. Andrew Peterson Joins MedGenome as Chief Scientific Officer

Key appointment to strengthen company's leadership in leveraging South Asian cohorts and genomics for drug discovery

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Sep 25, 2019, 12:00 ET

FOSTER CITY, California, Sept. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MedGenome, a genomics-driven research and diagnostics company, today announced the appointment of Dr. Andrew Peterson as its Chief Scientific Officer.

Dr. Peterson will lead the company's research programs to identify drug targets and biomarkers by leveraging its unparalleled access to south Asian cohorts and disease phenotypes. Its large network of collaborations with hospitals across India has enabled MedGenome to create a research platform to tap into thousands of patient records with oncology, auto-immune, metabolic and rare disease diagnoses. The platform capabilities are amplified by MedGenome's high-throughput genomics sequencing and data analysis/interpretation capabilities. Dr. Peterson will also be instrumental in strengthening the organization's capabilities and capacities to perform and execute large scale genomics research projects.

Prior to joining MedGenome, Dr. Peterson was Senior Director of Molecular Biology at Genentech, primarily focused on genomics applications for therapeutic interventions in areas such as cardiovascular diseases and liver diseases, resulting in molecules in clinical development. "I am very excited to have joined the team at MedGenome. It is an organization that is pushing the envelope in leveraging South Asian population genetic value for drug discovery and biomarker identification and I am looking forward to helping the organization to scale this in a meaningful manner," said Dr. Peterson on his appointment. Dr. Peterson has also led the scientific efforts of a consortium that produced a comprehensive catalogue of genetic variation across Asia as part of GenomeAsia 100K consortium. These efforts led to the development of imputation tools for South Asian genomes based on 30X WGS from >8,000 individuals. The project is advancing to catalogue the coding variation in more than 35,000 genomes using a combination of WGS and exome data, so that custom SNP arrays as well as imputation could be called upon in the design of genetic studies in South Asians.

"We are glad to welcome Andy as CSO of MedGenome. His leadership will enable us to partner with Pharma and Biotech companies to enable genetic research studies into complex human diseases, otherwise intractable by conventional genetic analysis. We are convinced that with our team, we will enable new therapies that will have global impact. We plan to spin-off the Data to Drugs division into a new company next year," said Sam Santhosh, Founder & Chairman, MedGenome.

About MedGenome

MedGenome Inc. is a global leader in personalized medicine with unique genomic solutions in immuno-oncology, diabetes, ophthalmology and other rare diseases. It has a high-throughput NGS facility in Foster City, California, supporting research projects for bio-pharma and academic institutions in the US and Europe.

MedGenome also supports human genetics research by leveraging our extensive infrastructure to access samples and data from patient records through collaborations with over 500 hospitals in India, combined with capabilities to perform population level genomic sequencing of individuals. Through our extensive presence in the Indian sub-continent through MedGenome Labs, we have access to data that provides insights into genetic diversity of Indian population for more than 4,500 population groups. Bioinformatics pipelines built to analyse data from large-scale sequencing efforts will facilitate identifying novel human genetic knockouts and medically relevant variants for drug discovery research.

MedGenome is also founding member of the GenomeAsia 100K, an initiative to sequence 100,000 Genomes in Asia, which will enable us to provide a unique resource of genetic research for the world. Headquartered in California, USA we have a workforce of more than 450 people across the globe with offices in India and Singapore

Forward-looking Statements:

This document contains certain forward-looking statements, other than the statements of research facts contained in this press release are forward looking statements. Terms such as "believe", "estimate", "anticipate", "plan", "predict", "may", "hope", "can", "will", "should", "expect", "intend", "is designed to", "with the intent", "potential", the negative of these words or such other variations thereon or comparable terminology, may indicate forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The events and circumstances reflected in MedGenome's forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, MedGenome does not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.

SOURCE MedGenome