Omega Therapeutics Strengthens Team With Key Management Appointments To Support Its Growth

Kevin McManus Appointed as Chief Human Resources Officer

Ling Zeng, Esq., Appointed as Chief Legal and Administrative Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Omega Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: OMGA) ("Omega"), a development-stage biotechnology company pioneering the first systematic approach to use mRNA therapeutics as a new class of programmable epigenetic medicines through its OMEGA Epigenomic Programing™ platform, today announced the appointment of Kevin McManus as Chief Human Resources Officer and Ling Zeng, Esq., as Chief Legal and Administrative Officer. Mr. McManus has extensive experience developing and implementing strategies to enhance growth and attract and retain talent while strengthening company culture. Ms. Zeng has deep experience in the healthcare industry, navigating a myriad of responsibilities around corporate governance, compliance, reputation, intellectual property, and operations.

"Omega is at a tremendous inflection point in its journey and Kevin and Ling further strengthen our talented senior management team. Kevin brings decades of organizational development experience to Omega and will work with the rest of our management team to continue developing a human resources strategy that helps maintain our agility and ethos of being ambitious, yet humble," said Mahesh Karande, President and Chief Executive Officer of Omega Therapeutics. "Ling has a proven track record as a biopharma legal and business expert working with companies at various stages of their life cycle, which will be especially valuable as we look to advance our Omega Epigenomic Controllers™ into the clinic and scale up the company further. I am excited to welcome both Kevin and Ling to the team."

"I am excited to join an organization with a strong, high-performance culture, grounded in humility and focused on improving human life," said Mr. McManus. "Omega's technology and platform are impressive and I look forward to helping advance the company's scientific and strategic objectives by continuing to cultivate our culture and attract the best talent to our organization."

Mr. McManus most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Acceleron Pharma, where he was responsible for leading human resources, information technology and facilities functions. During his time at Acceleron, Mr. McManus oversaw the company's growth while managing organizational development and culture enrichment. Before Acceleron, Mr. McManus held a variety of human resources roles of increasing responsibility at Bayer, most recently serving as Vice President and Human Resources Business Partner, Bayer Pharmaceuticals (Americas). While at Bayer, Mr. McManus worked extensively on team integration from mergers and acquisitions activity to talent acquisition as well as organizational development and growth across research and development, manufacturing, and commercial functions. Earlier in his career, Mr. McManus held senior human resources roles at Mylan Inc., The Ladders.com, ConvaTec, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and GTE Corporation. Mr. McManus received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. 

"I am thrilled to join Omega at such an exciting time as the company prepares to advance its programs into the clinic and continues to advance the science behind the pioneering OMEGA platform," said Ms. Zeng. "I look forward to working alongside Omega's talented management teams and contributing to the company's continued success."

Ms. Zeng most recently served as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals where she worked alongside other executives, the board of directors and their committees to develop and implement company strategy, policy, compliance, and governance activities. Earlier, Ms. Zeng served as Deputy Head Legal, Group Mergers and Acquisitions, at Novartis AG, where she was responsible for global transactions across the Novartis Group, including all business units and regions. Prior to this, she served in various legal executive roles of increasing responsibility at Bausch Health Companies, Inc., Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. and Barr Laboratories, Inc. Ms. Zeng began her legal career at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton and, prior to her legal career, also spent time as a researcher at Alkermes Inc. and LeukoSite Inc. Ms. Zeng earned her Bachelor of Science in Physics from Peking University, Master of Science in Biophysics from Brandeis University, and her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University.

About Omega Therapeutics

Omega Therapeutics, founded by Flagship Pioneering, is a development-stage biotechnology company pioneering a systematic approach to use mRNA therapeutics as a new class of programmable epigenetic medicines. The company's OMEGA Epigenomic Programming™ platform harnesses the power of epigenetics, the mechanism that controls gene expression and every aspect of an organism's life from cell genesis, growth, and differentiation to cell death. Using a suite of technologies, paired with Omega's process of systematic, rational, and integrative drug design, the deterministic OMEGA platform enables control of fundamental epigenetic processes to correct the root cause of disease by restoring aberrant gene expression to a normal range without altering native nucleic acid sequences. Omega's programmable and modular mRNA epigenetic medicines, Omega Epigenomic Controllers™, target specific epigenomic loci within insulated genomic domains, EpiZips™, from amongst thousands of unique, mapped, and validated genome-wide DNA-sequences, with high specificity to durably tune single or multiple genes to treat and cure diseases through Precision Genomic Control™. Omega is currently advancing a broad pipeline of development candidates spanning a range of disease areas, including oncology, multigenic diseases including immunology, regenerative medicine, and select monogenic diseases.

For more information, visit omegatherapeutics.com, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding the potential of the OMEGA Epigenomic Programming platform, the company's intention to advance its programs into the clinic, the continued growth and scale up of the company, and the company's high performance culture. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: the novel technology on which our product candidates are based makes it difficult to predict the time and cost of preclinical and clinical development and subsequently obtaining regulatory approval, if at all; the substantial development and regulatory risks associated with epigenomic controller machines due to the novel and unprecedented nature of this new category of medicines; our limited operating history; the incurrence of significant losses and the fact that we expect to continue to incur significant additional losses for the foreseeable future; our need for substantial additional financing; our investments in research and development efforts that further enhance the OMEGA platform, and their impact on our results; uncertainty regarding preclinical development, especially for a  new class of medicines such as epigenomic controllers; the fact that our product candidates may be associated with serious adverse events, undesirable side effects or have other properties that could halt their regulatory development, prevent their regulatory approval, limit their commercial potential, or result in significant negative consequences; the impact of increased demand for the manufacture of mRNA and LNP based vaccines to treat COVID-19 on our development plans; difficulties manufacturing the novel technology on which our OEC candidates are based; our ability to adapt to rapid and significant technological change; our reliance on third parties for the manufacture of materials; our ability to successfully acquire and establish our own manufacturing facilities and infrastructure; our reliance on a limited number of suppliers for lipid excipients used in our product candidates; our ability to advance our product candidates to clinical development; and our ability to obtain, maintain, enforce and adequately protect our intellectual property rights. These and other important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2021 and our other filings with the SEC could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of this press release. While we may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change.

Investor contact:
Kevin Murphy/Brendan Burns
Argot Partners
212.600.1902
[email protected] 

Media contact:
Jason Braco, Ph.D.
LifeSci Communications
646.751.4361
[email protected]

SOURCE Omega Therapeutics