Axcella Appoints Stephen Mitchener, Pharmd, to Senior Vice President, Chief Business Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., October 22, 2018 – Axcella Health, a biotechnology company pioneering a new approach to address metabolic dysregulation and health, today announced the appointment of Stephen Mitchener, PharmD, as Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer. Dr. Mitchener brings 15 years of pharmaceutical industry experience driving domestic and international commercialization, BD&L, operations, and value creation to Axcella.

“We are at an exciting time in Axcella’s evolution, and we are elated to have Stephen join our executive team. Stephen has a strong track record in strategic enterprise expansion, commercial leadership and business development,” said Bill Hinshaw, President and Chief Executive Officer of Axcella. “Stephen’s experience in leveraging his scientific and business acumen to develop assets from early stage through commercialization, steer US and Global product launches across multiple therapeutic areas, and lead innovative product and technology partnerships will be invaluable as we focus on the commercialization and partnering of key Axcella assets.”

“Stephen will be a tremendous addition to our team as we continue to grow the company across key functions,” said David Epstein, Chairman of the Axcella Board of Directors and Executive Partner of Flagship Pioneering. “He brings a wealth of industry experience from his time at Novartis, in both domestic and international roles, across a wide variety of therapeutic areas including immunology, infectious diseases, oncology, and rare diseases. We look forward to the addition of his expertise and leadership as we advance to our next stage of growth.”

Prior to joining Axcella, Dr. Mitchener built a 15-year career at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, most recently as Head of U.S. Oncology Strategy, Partnering and Operations. In this executive role, he led business development and collaborations for Novartis U.S. Oncology across academic, big data, pipeline, product and technology partnering initiatives. In addition, he had responsibility for Loss of Exclusivity (LoE), Companion Diagnostic (CDx) and Enterprise Operations for a $5 billion P&L. Dr. Mitchener has also led both commercial evaluations for successful global product acquisitions and BD&L activities for multiple products. In his commercial roles, Dr. Mitchener worked across immunology, infectious diseases, oncology, and rare diseases from clinical to commercialization and patent expiration.

“The promise of our innovative approach and development paradigm to address significant unmet needs is rare and vast. I see huge opportunity to create significant value through partnerships to maximize the potential of our platform and positively impact lives. I look forward to working with the team to continue building the company and to further advance its significant business and commercialization opportunities,” said Dr. Mitchener.

Dr. Mitchener received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and conducted his Postdoctoral work at Rutgers University and Novartis Oncology.

About Axcella™ Health

Metabolic dysregulation is at the heart of many diseases and maintaining metabolic function is core to health. Axcella is designing and developing endogenous metabolic modulator compositions with the goal of addressing metabolic dysregulation by safely reprogramming metabolism to either treat complex diseases or maintain health. With our diverse and expanding platform, we are transforming traditional discovery and development of drugs and health products. Our platform has already produced a rich pipeline of product candidates in programs that include liver, muscle, and CNS. Axcella Health was founded by Flagship Pioneering. www.axcellahealth.com