Second Genome Appoints Dr. Susannah Cantrell to Chief Business Officer and Dr. Preeti Gupta Lal to Chief Scientific Officer

BRISBANE, Calif., Jan. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Second Genome, a leader in microbiome science, today announced the appointment of Susannah Cantrell, PhD, to the position of chief business officer, and Preeti G. Lal, PhD, to the position of chief scientific officer.

Susannah Cantrell, PhD, joined Second Genome as chief business officer in November 2020. Dr. Cantrell has over 20 years of industry experience across global pipeline strategy, sales, operations, marketing and new product commercialization. Her experience covers multiple therapeutic areas including cell therapy, oncology, inflammation, anti-infectives, cardiology, neurology, nephrology and endocrinology. She most recently served as EVP and chief commercial officer at Tricida and prior to that was vice president and head of global commercial strategy and marketing oncology at Gilead Sciences where she was instrumental in leading and building its oncology and inflammation business from 2011 to 2019. Prior to her time at Gilead, Dr. Cantrell held various senior level positions at Genentech/Roche from 2005 to 2011, including marketing, strategic business planning and sales. She participated in life-cycle management and the pre-launch and commercial launch of several products, including RITUXAN, HERCEPTIN, AVASTIN and TARCEVA. Prior to Genentech, Dr. Cantrell held sales and marketing positions at GlaxoSmithKline, where she managed the anti-infective portfolio. Dr. Cantrell holds a BA in Biology from Westminster College and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Preeti G. Lal, PhD, joined Second Genome in 2021 as chief scientific officer. She also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Alladapt Immunotherapeutics.  Dr. Lal has over 25 years of experience leading data science, translational medicine activities in all phases of clinical trials, regulatory interactions with both the drug and device divisions of FDA, and companion diagnostics programs. Prior to Second Genome, she worked at several leading healthcare companies including Alladapt Immunotherapeutics, Roche Diagnostics, Gilead Sciences, Genentech and CareDx.  At CareDx, she leveraged data science, bioinformatics and immunology to develop the multigene diagnostic algorithm "AlloMap" which is an FDA approved diagnostic test in clinical use for the management of heart transplant subjects leading to reduction in the number of routine heart biopsies. Following her PhD, she spent seven years at Incyte Genomics where she worked on numerous pharma collaborations as the bioinformatics technical lead. Dr. Lal is a co-inventor on over 150 patents. She obtained her PhD in Immunology from the Medical University of South Carolina and MSc (Hons) in Microbiology from Bombay University, India. She did her fellowship in Tumor Biology at Stanford University where she worked on the role of GFAP in Astrocytoma.

"I am delighted to welcome both Susannah and Preeti to the Second Genome executive team. Their vast experience in life sciences and leadership will be critical in driving Second Genome's strategy and pipeline as we evolve into a product development company," stated Karim Dabbagh, PhD, president and chief executive officer at Second Genome. "The tremendous potential for innovation in drug development to arise from our microbiome science-based platform is a driver of an exciting plan to develop personalized therapies for multiple diseases and to partner our technology broadly across the industry, so we are excited to have Susannah and Preeti join our team at this point in our journey."

About Second Genome
Second Genome is a full-stack precision medicine and drug discovery company which identifies biomarkers, biological pathways, targets and potential therapeutics given its ability to harness the human-microbiome interface and has the capabilities to take products through clinical development to commercialization. The company uses its comprehensive microbiome-based drug discovery engine to discover and develop both microbially-derived protein therapeutics and biological targets resulting from how the microbiome influences a wide variety of diseases including cancer and immune-mediated diseases. Second Genome's pipeline includes preclinical programs in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and cancer, with the lead program SG-2-0776 in IBD expected to enter clinical development in 2022. The company's ability to deconvolute complex microbial science coupled with informatics expertise allows it to deliver personalized therapies and clinically relevant biomarkers. Additionally, the company has a strategic collaboration with Gilead Sciences, Inc. whereby Gilead is utilizing Second Genome's proprietary Microbiome Analytics Platform™ to identify novel biomarkers associated with clinical response to Gilead's investigational medicines. For more information, please visit www.secondgenome.com.

SOURCE Second Genome