Personalis Announces CEO Retirement and Transition

December 14, 2022 at 16:02 PM EST

Personalis, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSNL), a leader in advanced genomics for precision oncology, today announced that John West, co-founder, CEO and member of the board of directors of Personalis, notified the Company of his decision to retire as CEO and a director at the end of the calendar year. Mr. West has served in the DNA sequencing field for over forty years, and co-founded Personalis with four Stanford professors in 2011.

Effective December 31, 2022, Aaron Tachibana, Personalis Chief Financial Officer, will serve as interim CEO and Christopher Hall, Personalis SVP and Head, Diagnostics Business, will be promoted to President. Mr. West will continue to serve as an advisor to the Board.

“We thank John for his vision and dedication for more than a decade and wish him the best in the future,” said Karin Eastham, Personalis Board Chair. “The Board will immediately initiate a search for a successor. Under the leadership of Mr. Tachibana and Mr. Hall, we are committed to our strategy, particularly focused on the development of our NeXT Personal® MRD platform. We are fortunate to have an experienced and highly capable senior management team to continue leading the company and working closely with Aaron and Chris. I look forward to working with the leadership team as we recruit a new Chief Executive Officer.”

“It has been an honor having served as CEO since the company’s founding in 2011,” said Mr. West. “I am proud of the Personalis team, and the many accomplishments since inception, to create a company focused on helping cancer patients live better and longer lives using more advanced cancer therapies and more sophisticated genomic profiling tests. After over a decade of building, I can retire from Personalis knowing that the Company is well positioned to succeed going forward.”

About Personalis

Personalis, Inc. is a leader in advanced cancer genomics, enabling the next generation of precision cancer therapies and diagnostics. The Personalis NeXT Platform® is designed to adapt to the complex and evolving understanding of cancer, providing its biopharmaceutical customers and clinicians with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, together with the immune system, from a single sample. To enable cancer sequencing, Personalis' Clinical Laboratory was built with a focus on clinical accuracy, quality, big data, scale and efficiency. The laboratory is GxP-aligned as well as Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988-certified and College of American Pathologists-accredited. For more information, visit the Personalis website and follow Personalis on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release that are not historical are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of U.S. securities laws, including statements relating to Mr. West’s relationship with the Company following his resignation, the Company’s leadership, plans or expectations, or other future events. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from any anticipated results or expectations expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Personalis’ actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors relate to, among others: the timing of the executive transition, the competitive labor market, our ability to attract qualified executive candidates, our dependence on our senior management and current expectations regarding the Company’s performance in current and future periods. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results predicted in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption “Risk Factors” in Personalis’ Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2022, filed with the SEC on November 2, 2022. All information provided in this release is as of the date of this press release, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. Personalis undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.