CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship
Pioneering, a unique life sciences innovation enterprise, today
announced that it has further strengthened its executive leadership
team with the appointment of Fabrice
Chouraqui to the newly created dual role as both CEO-Partner
of Flagship Pioneering and Chief Executive Officer of
Cellarity.
"The newly created role of CEO-Partner ensures that our CEOs are
an integral part of the Flagship leadership team and enables them
to work more seamlessly as part of Flagship," says Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., founder and CEO of
Flagship Pioneering and founding Chairman of Cellarity. "Fabrice's
appointment illustrates our ongoing commitment to enhance
Flagship's leadership team by attracting highly experienced
industry executives with proven track records of driving long-term
business performance. I am excited for the opportunity our broader
ecosystem of companies will have to leverage his proven expertise
in bringing disruptive technologies and innovations to patients and
society."
Fabrice Chouraqui is a renowned
global pharmaceutical executive with experience across the business
spectrum, from research and development to commercial. He most
recently served as President of Novartis Pharmaceuticals US, where
he was credited with transforming the organization and turning
around the business. Mr. Chouraqui held numerous senior leadership
positions at Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squib and led the
successful launches of blockbuster treatments in multiple
therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, neuroscience,
and cardiovascular.
In a newly created role of CEO-Partner of Flagship Pioneering,
Mr. Chouraqui joins the Flagship senior leadership team and will
provide his knowledge and insights across the Flagship enterprise,
including serving on the boards of directors of certain Flagship
companies. In this role, he will work as part of Flagship's team to
plan, drive, and achieve the highest possible value creation for
Flagship and its companies. As CEO of Cellarity, Mr. Chouraqui will
lead the development of the company's groundbreaking platform based
on digital modeling of cell behaviors, and advance its portfolio of
medicines.
"I am delighted to join Flagship Pioneering in this newly
created role and look forward to working as part of the Flagship
leadership team and as CEO of Cellarity to contribute to Flagship's
impressive track record of driving cutting-edge innovation in life
sciences," says Mr. Chouraqui. "There is no greater challenge
facing the pharmaceutical industry than to design better medicines
faster and to increase R&D productivity. Cellarity is
harnessing digital technology to revolutionize the pharmaceutical
R&D paradigm and develop cell behavior-targeted therapies that
have greater clinical predictability. I am honored to partner with
Cellarity's founders, its outstanding leadership team, and talented
employees to help bring this vision to reality."
"I am thrilled at the integral role Fabrice will play alongside
me in helping to deliver upon the company's vast promise," said
Avak Kahvejian, Ph.D., Flagship
Pioneering General Partner and Founding CEO of Cellarity. "Over the
last two years, Cellarity has demonstrated that its cell behavior
digitization and targeting platform is applicable across tissues
and therapeutic areas, and we are now eager to translate these
advances to creating breakthrough medicines."
About Cellarity
Founded by Flagship Pioneering in
2017, Cellarity is driving a new paradigm in drug discovery through
digital modeling of cell behaviors. The company has developed a
unique combination of expertise across biology, high resolution
data, and machine learning to map cell behavior and design cellular
behavior-targeted therapies.
In just two years, Cellarity has already identified and
demonstrated in vivo proof of concept for drug candidates spanning
multiple therapeutic areas, including
obesity, thrombocytopenia, and immuno-oncology, and is now
pursuing a clinical development strategy for advancing several of
these programs.
About Fabrice Chouraqui
Fabrice Chouraqui is an experienced
global pharmaceutical executive with a passion for driving the
progress of medical sciences and bringing innovation to
patients. Mr. Chouraqui has deep experience across
the business spectrum, from R&D to commercial
leadership, business development, and investor communications.
He has led the launch of breakthrough treatments in a number
of areas, including oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and
cardiovascular.
In his most recent role, Mr. Chouraqui was President of the US
pharmaceuticals business for Novartis, where he was credited with
transforming the organization to adapt to a new market environment
and turning around its performance. He notably achieved strong
market position for Cosentyx and Entresto, initiated the landmark
PIONEER trial in Heart Failure, and championed a number of Business
Development initiatives. In this role, Mr.
Chouraqui oversaw all business areas, including US Clinical
Development and Medical Affairs and was a member of the Novartis
Pharmaceutical Executive Committee. He also represented Novartis on
the Board of BIO.
During his 10 years at Novartis, Mr. Chouraqui held several
senior leadership positions across multiple countries and
therapeutic areas, including serving as Global Business Franchise
head where he drove the success of Gilenya and led the rejuvenation
of Novartis neuroscience pipeline. Prior to Novartis, Mr. Chouraqui
worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb in a number of senior international
roles, including as Vice President, Commercial Operations,
Asia-Pacific and General Manager,
South East Asia. He began his career in R&D at Roussel
Uclaf and Hoechst Marion Roussel, pharma companies that were
predecessors to today's Sanofi.
Mr. Chouraqui earned his MBA from INSEAD and a doctorate in
pharmacy, a post-graduate degree in quality management and a MSc.
in biological and medicinal sciences from University of
Paris.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering
conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life
sciences companies to transform human health and sustainability.
Since its launch in 2000, the firm has applied a unique
hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more
than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $34 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship
is backed by more than $4.4 billion
of aggregate capital commitments, of which over $1.9 billion has been deployed toward the
founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than
$10 billion of follow-on investments
from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises
41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health
(NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo
Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics, Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences
(NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius
Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology, Seres
Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Syros Pharmaceuticals
(NASDAQ: SYRS).
To learn more about Flagship Pioneering, please explore our
website: www.FlagshipPioneering.com.
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