Flagship Pioneering Appoints Prakash Raman, Ph.D. as Senior Partner and Chief Business Development Officer

Industry Leader to Enhance Pharma/BioPharma Engagement and Collaborations

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Nov 12, 2019, 08:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering, a unique life sciences innovation enterprise, today announced the appointment of Prakash Raman, Ph.D. to the post of Senior Partner and the newly created role of Chief Business Development Officer. Dr. Raman most recently served as Vice President, Global Head of Business Development and Licensing at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR).

In his role at Flagship Pioneering, Dr. Raman will be responsible for enhancing business development activities and strategic partnerships to maximize value for Flagship's ecosystem of therapeutics companies.

"Across the Flagship ecosystem, our companies spend about $1.2bn annually on Research and Development, and they currently have 40 programs in the clinic and over 120 programs in pre-clinical development," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Flagship. "Prakash, who embodies a rare blend of scientist and deal maker, is an ideal partner to engage with the scientific leadership of Pharma and BioPharma to showcase the groundbreaking research taking place with our companies and to help us continue to drive significant value creation for our corporate partners and our pioneering companies."

"I am excited to join Flagship Pioneering at this important time in its evolution and to contribute to its unique process of value creation across the Flagship ecosystem," said Dr. Raman. "With our unique focus on creating breakthrough platform companies with the potential to generate multiple first-in-category products, Flagship is an ideal source of novel business relationships with like-minded strategic partners, thereby accelerating the advancement of new products that can positively impact human health."

About Prakash Raman
Dr. Raman joins Flagship Pioneering following a fourteen-year tenure at Novartis. In his role as Vice President, Global Head of Business Development and Licensing at NIBR, he was instrumental in forging key collaborations in immuno-oncology, including executing the acquisition of IFM-Tre and many out-licensing opportunities. Dr. Raman also served as the leader of the Oncology Business Development and Licensing team at Novartis, where he helped guide the acquisitions of Selexys Pharmaceuticals, Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA) and Endocyte.

Prior to his time at Novartis, Dr. Raman was Head of Project Management for the Infectious Disease iMED unit at AstraZeneca where he managed a portfolio of early to clinical stage programs. He also served as a Senior Scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Raman earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison followed by a post-doctoral position at The Scripps Research Institute.

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 $30 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship is backed by more than $3.3 billion of aggregate capital commitments, of which over $1.7 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 37 transformative companies, including: Axcella Health (NADAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics, Indigo Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS). To learn more about Flagship Pioneering, please visit our website: www.FlagshipPioneering.com.