Dr.

Abasi Ene-Obong, co-founder and CEO of 54gene, a Nigerian health tech

company has resigned from his position according to a statement seen by
TechCabal. 54gene’s General Counsel, Teresia L. Bost, will take over as interim
CEO. Dr. Ene-Obong will continue to support the company as Senior Advisor and
remain on 54gene’s Board of Directors.

Per the official statement, Dr. Ene-Obong said, “Teresia and Delali bring decades
of experience in building and scaling high-impact global pharma companies, and
they also have deep insight into the workings of 54gene. I am excited to see
them take the company to its next phase.”

It’s not clear why Ene-Obong is stepping down, but the company’s recent
struggles are likely to be a contributing factor. After the recent layoff, there were
allegations of financial impropriety leveled against Ene-Obong which weren’t
proven.

This announcement comes barely one month after Ogochukwu Osifo, 54gene
co-founder and vice president of engineering announced his departure from the
company in a LinkedIn post. While no reason was given for the departure of Dr.
Ene-Obong, Osifo explained in his post that he was leaving 54gene “to pursue
other interests.” Osifo’s LinkedIn profile has been updated to include a new role
as “Chief Executive Officer at Rayda”

54gene says it will now focus “on its core mission of African genomics research
and equalizing precision medicine.” The company also says it plans to
restructure its business across a number of departments and geographies and
will conduct a second round of layoffs. 54gene had in August laid off 95
employees as revenue from Covid-19 testing dwindled.

Interest in health tech soared globally as Covid-19 hit driving investment into a
sector that is relatively underfunded. For some of these firms, especially
companies like 54gene, pandemic management measures like Covid-19
screening represented an easy source of revenue. 54gene partnered with
government agencies to deliver these tests.

“Going forward, the primary focus will be on the unique genomic research the
company has started by further leveraging its genomic datasets derived from
54gene’s state-of-the-art biobank, that currently houses over 130,000 unique
patient samples and corresponding genomic data, all with the objective of
positioning the company to make contributions to precision medicine and drug
discovery. This continues the meaningful work the company has invested in,
whilst de-emphasising the clinical diagnostic business line at this time,” the
statement read.

In September 2021, 54gene raised $25 million in a Series B round that brought
the company’s total investment to over $45M since it was founded by Dr. Abasi
Ene-Obong in 2019. Investors in the company include Y Combinator, Adjuvant
Capital, Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF), among others.

Teresia Bost, 54gene’s new leader joined the firm in 2021 as General Counsel,
after two decades of working as a corporate lawyer for several pharmaceutical
companies including Celgene and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Said Jenny Yip, Managing Partner of Adjuvant Capital and 54gene Board Chair,
“Whilst we continue to work closely with Abasi, as he takes on a new role as
Senior Advisor, we’re also excited to have Teresia Bost, in her role as Interim
CEO, lead the company into its next phase.”