Sally Howard, Charles Mwangi, and Julie Tran join the company to lead regulatory, finance, and people teams
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO — Freenome, a privately held biotech company, today announced three executives have joined the company to support its continued growth. These new leaders will help drive performance as the company expands its multiomics platform capabilities, integrates real-world data (RWD) into clinical studies and prepares for commercialization of future blood tests.
Sally Howard, Senior Vice President, Regulatory and Quality
Sally Howard joins Freenome as senior vice president to oversee regulatory strategy and lead the quality function for Freenome’s clinical diagnostic products. A lawyer by training, Sally brings a depth of experience and knowledge gained from her role as deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where she led efforts to bring novel regulatory approaches to next-generation sequencing assays as part of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative. Sally was most recently vice president of regulatory affairs and quality at Adaptive Biotechnologies and previously held positions at the Department of Health and Human Services, including deputy general counsel and chief of staff.
Charles Mwangi, Chief Financial Officer
Charles Mwangi will lead all aspects of Freenome’s finance functions. With extensive experience in both public and private companies, Charles’ diverse expertise spans accounting, financial planning, analysis, reporting, mergers and acquisitions, and operations. Charles joins Freenome from Western Digital where he was senior vice president and chief financial officer for the Flash division. Prior to Western Digital, Charles worked at Cepheid, where he was senior vice president and chief financial officer. Charles also held financial leadership roles at Lam Research, Diageo, Broadcom (formerly Avago) and Affymetrix (acquired by Thermo Fisher).
Julie Tran, Chief People Officer
Julie Tran joins Freenome as chief people officer, where she will lead all aspects of the company’s human resources strategy, including diversity, equity and inclusion. Prior to Freenome, Julie was the senior vice president of human resources at Myovant Sciences, where she was instrumental in building the executive, senior leadership and commercial teams. Previously, Julie held leadership roles at Raptor Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Horizon), Johnson & Johnson, Medivation and Ipsen.
“We are thrilled that Sally, Charles and Julie have joined us in our mission. Each brings interdisciplinary expertise and a sense of purpose for making our tests available to everyone, saving more lives,” said Mike Nolan (Freenome CEO). “As we conclude our clinical trial, PREEMPT CRC, their leadership strengthens our execution as we advance toward the forefront of clinical care.”
Freenome recently closed enrollment for PREEMPT CRC, the largest registrational study to validate a blood-based colorectal cancer screening test. Earlier this year, Freenome launched its first prospective clinical study for the detection of multiple cancers. The company expects to announce additional multi-cancer and real-world data (RWD) studies in the coming months.