Omega Therapeutics Announces Appointment of Rainer Boehm to its Board of Directors

• Former Novartis Veteran Brings Deep Expertise in Drug Development and Commercialization

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Omega Therapeutics, Inc. OMGA ("Omega"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the first systematic approach to using mRNA therapeutics as a new class of programmable epigenetic medicines by leveraging its OMEGA Epigenomic Programing™ platform, today announced the appointment of Rainer Boehm as an independent director to its Board of Directors. Mr. Boehm will serve on Omega's audit and compensation committees.

"Rainer's growth-oriented perspective and global strategic management experience will be invaluable to Omega in this next phase of the Company's trajectory," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chairman of the Board for Omega Therapeutics and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flagship Pioneering. "I look forward to working closely with him as Omega continues to advance its clinical pipeline and demonstrate the broad capabilities of its pioneering drug development platform."

"We are thrilled to welcome Rainer to our Board and look forward to leveraging his significant drug development expertise, strategic thought-leadership and executive management skills as we work to advance our new class of programmable epigenetic medicines," said Mahesh Karande, President and Chief Executive Officer of Omega. "Rainer is a recognized industry leader with a strong track record of working with and growing innovative clinical stage companies and has extensive experience managing global drug development and commercialization."

"Omega is pioneering a new class of programmable mRNA therapeutics that have the potential to transform the way we approach difficult-to-treat diseases," said Mr. Boehm. "This is an exciting time for the Company, and I look forward to partnering with this accomplished board of directors and management team and sharing insights as they continue to pave new roads through the discovery and development of epigenomic controllers for patients in need."

Mr. Boehm brings over 30 years of clinical and managerial experience to Omega. He held several senior management positions during his extensive tenure at Novartis Pharma AG and its predecessor, CIBA-Geigy, spanning from 1988 to 2017, most recently as Chief Commercial & Medical Affairs Officer. He was a key figure in the successful establishment of Novartis Oncology. He oversaw the launch and life cycle management of many blockbuster brands in different geographies globally, amongst them Femara, Zometa and Glivec in oncology, as well as Cosentyx and Entresto and the immunology and cardiovascular disease areas. Prior to joining Novartis, he served as unit head at the Psychiatric Hospital in Zwiefalten, Germany. Mr. Boehm serves on the boards of Cellectis SA CLLS, Humanigen Inc. HGEN, BioCopy, AG (private) and Berlin Cures, AG (private). He holds a medical degree from the University of Ulm in Germany, and a Master of Business Administration from Schiller University, Strasbourg Campus in France. Recently he commenced a Master of Public Health program at the Universities of Basel / Bern / Zurich in Switzerland.

Omega Therapeutics, founded by Flagship Pioneering, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the first 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 OMEGA platform enables control of fundamental epigenetic processes to correct the root cause of disease by returning aberrant gene expression to a normal range without altering native nucleic acid sequences. Omega's modular and programmable mRNA 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, regenerative medicine, multigenic diseases including immunology, and select monogenic diseases, including alopecia. 

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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 our product candidate pipeline, including our development of OTX-2002 and other drug candidates and Mr. Boehm's impact on the Company. 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 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, 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.

Contacts

Investor contact:
Kevin Murphy
Argot Partners
212.600.1902
ArgotOmega@argotpartners.com

Media contact:
Jason Braco
LifeSci Communications
646.751.4361
jbraco@lifescicomms.com

SOURCE Omega Therapeutics