Flagship Pioneering Expands Leadership Team with Appointment of Michael T. Nally as CEO-Partner

Nally to Lead Generate Biomedicines as CEO

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Mar 31, 2021, 07:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering today announced the expansion of its senior leadership team with the appointment of Michael T. Nally as CEO-Partner. In this role, Nally will bring his considerable expertise in biopharma to help achieve the highest possible value creation for Flagship and its companies. He will also serve as CEO of Generate Biomedicines, a company focused on pioneering a versatile Generative Biology platform to create a broad array of breakthrough therapeutics.

Nally previously spent 18 years at Merck, where he was most recently Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of its Human Health division. In this role, he led Merck's global marketing strategy, commercialization model, and long-term growth strategy across its product portfolio.

"Mike is a singular talent in life sciences and pharma, and our companies will benefit tremendously from his leadership, experience, and knowledge," said Noubar Afeyan, Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. "Mike's appointment to this unique hybrid role is the latest example of Flagship's commitment to bringing on the highest caliber industry executives with track records of exceptional performance to drive growth for our companies."

"I am excited to join Flagship Pioneering's world class team. Flagship companies are bettering patient health at increasing scale, as well as delivering extraordinary value," added Michael T. Nally, CEO-Partner, Flagship Pioneering. "I look forward to working closely with my Flagship colleagues and leading the team at Generate to bring to market new, disruptive innovations that improve human lives."

"Mike is joining at an important time for Generate, which leverages AI and Machine Learning to enable a fundamental shift in therapeutic development," said Avak Kahvejian, Founding Co-CEO of Generate Biomedicines and General Partner, Flagship Pioneering. "I look forward to partnering with Mike to advance our work creating breakthrough medicines that realize the breadth of this platform's potential."

"Generate's platform enables it to leapfrog existing discovery methods to develop novel biologic drugs for potentially any target," said Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Founding Co-CEO of Generate Biomedicines and General Partner at Flagship Pioneering. "I am delighted to welcome Mike to the Generate team; he will bring his deep strategic and operational expertise to help us deliver on the promise of this remarkable platform."

About Michael T. Nally

Nally previously served as President of Merck's Global Vaccines division where he and his team increased the reach and public health impact of its portfolio of pediatric, adolescent, and adult vaccines resulting in significant business growth. He also led Merck's business in Sweden and the UK, and developed innovative, customer-centered approaches that improved business results and accelerated patient access to the company's medicines and vaccines. Additionally, he held a variety of senior positions at Merck in commercial operations, business development, and investor relations.

Mike received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, a degree in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College.

About Generate Biomedicines

Generate Biomedicines is pioneering the field of Generative Biology, where novel therapeutics are computationally generated, instead of being discovered. Generate has built a machine learning–powered biomedicines platform with the potential to generate new drugs across a wide range of biologic modalities—from short peptides to complex antibodies, enzymes, cytokines, and heretofore undiscoverable therapeutics. This platform represents a potentially fundamental shift in what's possible in the field of biotherapeutic development, addressing key challenges of drug discovery and drastically expanding the available search space for novel biomedicines. Generate Biomedicines is based in Cambridge, MA, and was founded in 2018 by Flagship Pioneering.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life science platform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $80 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.3 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Codiak BioSciences (NASDAQ: CDAK) Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SGTX).