Metagenomi Appoints Luis Borges, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer and Pamela Wapnick, MBA, as Chief Financial Officer

Metageno­mi, a pre­ci­sion genet­ic med­i­cines com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing cura­tive ther­a­peu­tics for patients by lever­ag­ing its metage­nomics-derived genome edit­ing tool­box, today announced the appoint­ment of Luis Borges, Ph.D., as Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer and Pamela Wap­nick, MBA, as Chief Finan­cial Officer.

“I am excit­ed to wel­come Luis and Pamela to expand the sci­en­tif­ic and finan­cial strength of our lead­er­ship team,” said Bri­an C. Thomas, Ph.D., CEO and founder of Metageno­mi. ​“The tal­ent, expe­ri­ence, and in-depth knowl­edge that Luis and Pamela bring will be instru­men­tal in the exe­cu­tion of our strat­e­gy at a time when Metageno­mi is rapid­ly advanc­ing mul­ti­ple ther­a­peu­tic pro­grams towards clin­i­cal devel­op­ment. I am proud of the world-class team we have assem­bled, dri­ven by our pas­sion and com­mit­ment to devel­op cura­tive ther­a­peu­tics for patients using our pro­pri­etary, metage­nomics-derived genome edit­ing toolbox.”

Dr. Luis Borges joins Metageno­mi in the role of Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer with more than 27 years of sci­en­tif­ic and exec­u­tive lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence in both bio­phar­ma and start­up biotech com­pa­nies. Dr. Borges was most recent­ly Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer at Cen­tu­ry Ther­a­peu­tics, where he suc­cess­ful­ly built a mul­ti­func­tion­al dis­cov­ery and trans­la­tion­al research orga­ni­za­tion. Pri­or to Cen­tu­ry, he served as Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer at Cell Med­ica, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Research at Five Prime Ther­a­peu­tics, and Sci­en­tif­ic Direc­tor in Amgen’s Ther­a­peu­tic Inno­va­tion Unit. Dr. Borges brings sci­en­tif­ic and oper­a­tional rig­or and decades of expe­ri­ence in drug devel­op­ment. This includes both dis­cov­ery research and trans­la­tion­al sci­ence, hav­ing helped to advance mul­ti­ple drug devel­op­ment can­di­dates from IND fil­ing into clin­i­cal devel­op­ment and onward through FDA approval. In his role at Metageno­mi, Dr. Borges will over­see the dis­cov­ery and sys­tem­at­ic advance­ment of the Com­pa­ny’s next-gen­er­a­tion gene edit­ing tech­nolo­gies to accel­er­ate their path­way to clin­i­cal trans­la­tion for in vivo and ex vivo appli­ca­tions. Dr. Borges holds a Ph.D. in pathol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton School of Medicine.

Dr. Borges com­ment­ed, ​“I am excit­ed to join Metageno­mi at this crit­i­cal time where the company’s gene edit­ing tool­box and pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams are rapid­ly advanc­ing. Our gene edit­ing sys­tems offer unique advan­tages to address genet­ic dis­or­ders dri­ven by dele­tions, inser­tions, sin­gle-base-pair changes, and sequence repeats, that are found through­out the genome and across a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent cell types and organ sys­tems. I believe Metageno­mi is unique­ly posi­tioned to select the opti­mal tool to unlock the full poten­tial of genome edit­ing for patients suf­fer­ing from seri­ous illnesses.”

Pamela Wap­nick has more than 20 years of diver­si­fied finan­cial lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence span­ning strate­gic and oper­a­tional finance roles. Pri­or to join­ing Metageno­mi, Pamela served as Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer at sev­er­al biotech and med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies includ­ing Dial­i­ty, Cap­si­da Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, and Gray­bug Vision, where she built the finance func­tions and led finan­cial plan­ning and strat­e­gy. As Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer at True North Ther­a­peu­tics, Pamela com­plet­ed prepa­ra­tions for an ini­tial pub­lic offer­ing before the company’s acqui­si­tion by Biover­a­tiv. Pri­or to that, she served in var­i­ous exec­u­tive lead­er­ship roles at Amgen, includ­ing Cor­po­rate Trea­sur­er and Vice Pres­i­dent R&D Finance, where she was respon­si­ble for a $3 bil­lion glob­al R&D bud­get focused on advanc­ing research and pipeline pro­grams. Pamela holds an MBA from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and a BA in Eco­nom­ics from Welles­ley College.

“I’m thrilled to join Metageno­mi at such a piv­otal time for the com­pa­ny. With its strong finan­cial foun­da­tion, I look for­ward to steer­ing the com­pa­ny towards the next phase on its mis­sion to devel­op cura­tive gene edit­ing ther­a­peu­tics,” said Wapnick.

About Metageno­mi
Metageno­mi is a gene edit­ing com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing poten­tial­ly cura­tive ther­a­peu­tics by lever­ag­ing a pro­pri­etary tool­box of next-gen­er­a­­tion gene edit­ing sys­tems to accu­rate­ly edit DNA where cur­rent tech­nolo­gies can­not. Our metage­­nomics-pow­ered dis­cov­ery plat­form and ana­lyt­i­cal exper­tise reveal nov­el cel­lu­lar machin­ery sourced from oth­er­wise unknown organ­isms. We adapt and forge these nat­u­ral­ly evolved sys­tems into pow­er­ful gene edit­ing sys­tems that are ultra-small, extreme­ly effi­cient, high­ly spe­cif­ic and have a decreased risk of immune response. These sys­tems fuel our pipeline of nov­el med­i­cines. Our goal is to rev­o­lu­tion­ize gene edit­ing for the ben­e­fit of patients around the world. For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it https://​metageno​mi​.co.