Personal Genome Diagnostics Welcomes New Members to Board of Directors, Bringing Proven, Industry-Leading Experience in Precision Medicine and Healthcare Policy

“We are extremely excited to have Kavita and Gary join the PGDx team,” said Doug Ward, Chief Executive Officer at PGDx. “They bring tremendous, relevant experience and we look forward to working with them as we deliver on our strategy of empowering global access to precision medicine in oncology. Their insights will be critical as we continue to enable local, standardized Next Generation Sequencing with our portfolio of tissue based and liquid biopsy products aimed at improving clinical insight, speed of results and health economics.”

Kavita Patel, M.D., joined New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA), a leading global venture capital firm and investor in PGDx, in 2017 as a Venture Partner on the healthcare team. In addition to her role at NEA, Dr. Patel serves as Vice President of Payer/Provider Transformation and is a practicing primary care physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Dr. Patel served in the Obama Administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House, where she played a key role in design of healthcare reform legislation. She also has a deep understanding of Capitol Hill from her time spent on the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s staff. As deputy staff director on health, she served as a policy analyst and trusted aide to the Senator and was part of the senior staff of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee under Senator Kennedy’s Leadership. Dr. Patel has both a research and clinical background, having worked as a researcher at the RAND Corporation and a practicing physician in California and Oregon. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and serves on the Boards of Directors at Dignity Health and SSM Health Care. Dr. Patel earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and a Master of Science in Health Services Research from the University of California Los Angeles.

Mr. Nicholson brings more than 30 years of pharmaceutical and biotech oncology experience. From May 2008 through April 2015, he served as President, Pfizer Oncology and was responsible for driving global commercialization and sales, clinical development and regulatory strategy, and business development. Under his leadership, the company developed and executed the global regulatory and launch strategy for Ibrance® (palbociclib), the first CDK4/6 inhibitor approved in the U.S. and Europe. Mr. Nicholson has served on the Board of Directors of the Pfizer Foundation and was a member of Pfizer’s Portfolio, Strategy and Investment Committee, which set corporate research and development priorities and investment strategy. In addition, he was an advisor to AMPATH, a consortium of North American universities and health centers, Moi University, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, and the Government of Kenya that helps build sustainable healthcare systems in developing nations.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Nicholson held various leadership positions in the oncology division of Eli Lilly and Company. Most recently, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of XTuit Pharmaceuticals, where he also was a member of the Board of Directors. He currently serves as a Director at Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., G1 Therapeutics, Inc., Tmunity Therapeutics, Inc., and SQZ Biotechnologies, Inc. Mr. Nicholson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an MBA from the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

About Personal Genome Diagnostics
Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx) empowers the fight against cancer by unlocking actionable information from the genome. We are committed to developing a portfolio of regulated tissue-based and liquid biopsy genomic products for laboratories worldwide. PGDx was established by researchers from Johns Hopkins University who are pioneers in cancer genome sequencing and liquid biopsy technologies. For additional information, visit www.PersonalGenome.com.

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