Afrigather Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong, co-founder and CEO of 54gene, a Nigerian well being tech firm has resigned from his place in response to a press release seen by TechCabal. 54gene’s Common Counsel, Teresia L. Bost, will take over as interim CEO. Dr. Ene-Obong will proceed to help the corporate as Senior Advisor and stay on 54gene’s Board of Administrators.
Per the official assertion, Dr. Ene-Obong mentioned, “Teresia and Delali deliver many years of expertise in constructing and scaling high-impact world pharma firms, and so they even have deep perception into the workings of 54gene. I’m excited to see them take the corporate to its subsequent section.”
It’s not clear why Ene-Obong is stepping down, however the firm’s latest struggles are more likely to be a contributing issue. After the latest layoff, there have been allegations of monetary impropriety leveled in opposition to Ene-Obong which weren’t confirmed.
This announcement comes barely one month after Ogochukwu Osifo, 54gene co-founder and vp of engineering introduced his departure from the corporate in a LinkedIn submit. Whereas no motive was given for the departure of Dr. Ene-Obong, Osifo defined in his submit that he was leaving 54gene “to pursue different pursuits.” Osifo’s LinkedIn profile has been up to date to incorporate a brand new function as “Chief Government Officer at Rayda”
54gene says it should now focus “on its core mission of African genomics analysis and equalizing precision drugs.” The corporate additionally says it plans to restructure its enterprise throughout a lot of departments and geographies and can conduct a second spherical of layoffs. 54gene had in August laid off 95 staff as income from Covid-19 testing dwindled.
Curiosity in well being tech soared globally as Covid-19 hit driving funding right into a sector that’s comparatively underfunded. For a few of these companies, particularly firms like 54gene, pandemic administration measures like Covid-19 screening represented a simple income. 54gene partnered with authorities companies to ship these assessments.
“Going ahead, the first focus will probably be on the distinctive genomic analysis the corporate has began by additional leveraging its genomic datasets derived from 54gene’s state-of-the-art biobank, that presently homes over 130,000 distinctive affected person samples and corresponding genomic knowledge, all with the target of positioning the corporate to make a contribution to precision drugs and drug discovery. This continues the significant work the corporate has invested in, while de-emphasising the scientific diagnostic enterprise line presently,” the assertion learn.
In September 2021, 54gene raised $25 million in a Sequence B spherical that introduced the corporate’s whole funding to over $45M because it was based by Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong in 2019. Buyers within the firm embody Y Combinator, Adjuvant Capital, Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF), amongst others.
Teresia Bost, 54gene’s new chief joined the agency in 2021 as Common Counsel, after twenty years of working as a company lawyer for a number of pharmaceutical firms together with Celgene and Jazz Prescribed drugs.
Mentioned Jenny Yip, Managing Associate of Adjuvant Capital and 54gene Board Chair, “While we proceed to work intently with Abasi, as he takes on a brand new function as Senior Advisor, we’re additionally excited to have Teresia Bost, in her function as Interim CEO, lead the corporate into its subsequent section.”
