Flagship Ventures Forms Strategic Innovation Partnerships with AstraZeneca, Nestle Health Science and Bayer CropScience

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Ventures, a leading venture capital and venture creation firm focused on innovations in healthcare and sustainability, announced it has formed strategic innovation partnerships with AstraZeneca, Nestle Health Science and Bayer CropScience. These collaborations will allow Flagship to scale up its unique innovation foundry, VentureLabs®, as well as expand its early stage venture funding activities while leveraging the partners' strengths as market leaders.

Working with Flagship, each partner will gain access to the firm's unique model of entrepreneurial innovation, venture creation and development. Flagship will benefit from each partner's deep knowledge of market needs and research frontiers, as well as expertise in product development and commercialization.

As part of the innovation partnerships, AstraZeneca, Nestle Health Science and Bayer CropScience each also invested in Flagship Ventures' Fund V, a $537 million, oversubscribed venture capital fund that closed in March 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"For 15 years, Flagship has uniquely pursued a hybrid model of venture creation and investment to fulfill its mission of realizing entrepreneurial innovation," said Dr. Noubar Afeyan, senior managing partner and chief executive officer of Flagship. "The strategic innovation partnerships we have formed with these leading companies will enable us to accelerate our efforts, translate more scientific discoveries into game-changing companies that disrupt existing markets, and make our own breakthrough innovations to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges."

"We are partnering with Flagship based on their proven track record of successfully creating and investing in transformative therapeutics platforms," said Dr. Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of AstraZeneca's Innovative Medicines Unit. "Our collaboration will allow us to leverage our complementary strengths while accessing breakthrough science at its formative stages."

Greg Behar, chief executive of Nestle Health Science, said, "Our investment in Fund V is another step forward in advancing the therapeutic role of nutrition, an area alive with discovery and innovation. Nutritional therapy is rapidly advancing as breakthroughs are being made in terms of understanding mode of action and clinical and health economic evidence." In January 2015, Nestle Health Science announced an investment in Seres Health, a Flagship VentureLabs^®-founded portfolio company pursuing novel therapeutics based on the human microbiome.

"Flagship shares our strategic vision of addressing some of the major problems in modern agriculture by developing innovative solutions," said Liam Condon, chief executive officer of Bayer CropScience. "We are excited to work with Flagship to identify and commercialize companies that will have a positive, sustainable impact on agricultural production and food security in the 21^st century."

Under the terms of the partnership agreement, the parties will work together to create the next generation of cutting-edge innovations leading to a portfolio of pioneering ventures. The corporate partners will collaborate with the resulting companies, and may also deploy traditional business development approaches such as direct investments, licensing, joint ventures or acquisitions.

Media Contacts:

For Flagship:
Jeffrey Krasner (617) 840-9806
[email protected] 

Emily Rossi, Ruder Finn (212) 593-6431
[email protected] 

About Flagship Ventures

Realizing entrepreneurial innovation is the mission of Flagship Ventures. Founded in 2000, the firm has launched 30 companies while investing in another 50. Flagship manages $1.4 billion in capital and is active in three principal sectors: therapeutics, health technologies, and sustainability. Flagship's current portfolio includes Acceleron (NASDAQ: XLRN), Agios (NASDAQ: AGIO), BIND Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BIND), Concert Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CNCE), Eleven Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: EBIO), T2 Biosystems (NASDAQ: TTOO), as well as several private companies: Editas Medicine, Pronutria Biosciences, Seres Health and Moderna Therapeutics. For more information, please visit www.flagshipventures.com.

About Flagship VentureLabs

Flagship VentureLabs® is the innovation foundry of Flagship Ventures. VentureLabs has been creating breakthrough companies since 2000. It is the first institution dedicated to entrepreneurial innovation, where the acts of discovery, invention and entrepreneuring are performed simultaneously by a world-class team of scientists, innovators and professional entrepreneurs. VentureLabs innovates, invents, launches and builds startups through a unique, systematic approach that produces best-in-class companies. VentureLabs has started 30 life science and technology companies, including Joule Unlimited, Seres Health, Pronutria Biosciences, Symbiota and Moderna Therapeutics. For more information, please visit www.flagshipventures.com/venturelabs.

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmune, oncology, infection and neuroscience diseases. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide. For more information please visit www.astrazeneca-us.com.

About Bayer CropScience

Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 9.494 billion (2014) and is one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high value seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 23,100 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com.

About Nestle Health Science

Nestle Health Science, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nestle, is a health-science company engaged in advancing the role of nutritional therapy to change the course of health for consumers, patients and our partners in healthcare. Its portfolio of nutrition solutions, supported variously by proprietary diagnostics and devices, targets a number of heath areas, such as inborn errors of metabolism, paediatric and acute care, obesity care, healthy ageing as well as gastrointestinal and brain health. Through investing in innovation and leveraging leading edge science, we bring forward innovative nutritional therapies with proven clinical, health economic value and quality of life benefits. Nestle Health Science employs around 3,000 people worldwide and is headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.nestlehealthscience.com.

SOURCE Flagship Ventures

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