Flagship Pioneering Expands Executive Team with Appointment of Guillaume Pfefer as CEO-Partner

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Jul 16, 2020, 08:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 16, 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 life sciences industry veteran Guillaume Pfefer, Ph.D., as CEO-Partner of Flagship Pioneering. In this capacity, Dr. Pfefer will also serve as Chief Executive Officer of Kintai Therapeutics, a Flagship Labs-founded company.

Dr. Pfefer joins Flagship with more than 25 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and most recently served as Senior Vice President, SVP, Global Vaccine Leader for SHINGRIX, GlaxoSmithKline's blockbuster vaccine for the prevention of shingles.

"We are delighted to add an individual as talented and experienced as Guillaume to our expanding roster of CEO-Partners, who are bringing their leadership experience and industry knowledge to our ecosystem of companies," says Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. "Flagship and our companies will benefit greatly from the breadth of knowledge Guillaume has amassed in advancing and commercializing breakthrough science on a global scale."

As CEO-Partner of Flagship Pioneering, Dr. Pfefer joins the Flagship senior leadership team and will provide his expertise across the Flagship ecosystem, 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.

"I am excited at the opportunity to join Flagship and contribute to its institutional process of conceiving, forming and growing pioneering companies and to maximize their value for patients and shareholders," said Guillaume Pfefer. "Flagship has a well-earned reputation for taking bold and disruptive steps to bring transformative medicines and products to society and I am thrilled to play a role in its next chapter of groundbreaking science and innovation."

About Guillaume Pfefer
Dr. Pfefer is an experienced life sciences executive who brings a wealth of expertise spanning research and development, manufacturing, strategy, commercial, business development and operations. As part of his role as Global Vaccine Leader for GSK, he led the U.S. launch of SHINGRIX, where he and his team delivered one of the best biopharma launches in North America over the past decade as independently assessed by IQVIA. Prior to GSK, Dr. Pfefer served as President and CEO of Kala Pharmaceuticals, where he helped transform the company from a pre-clinical technology platform start-up to a leading ophthalmology company currently with two commercial products on the market. He holds a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from the National School for Chemical Engineering (Nancy, France), a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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).