Axcella Appoints Tony Tramontin, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—June 14, 2017-- Axcella, a biotechnology company pioneering transformative medicines for patients with severe conditions caused by disrupted amino acid biology, announced today that Tony Tramontin, Ph.D., has joined the company as Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Research & Development. Dr. Tramontin comes to Axcella with over 13 years of executive advisory experience in biopharma, and will oversee discovery, preclinical development, translational medicine, technical development, formulation, and strategic innovation.

“With his extensive expertise in translating innovative scientific findings into successful R&D execution, we welcome Tony as a critical addition to our senior leadership team. He brings the experience and vision to unlock the full potential of our unique platform to address a wide spectrum of therapeutic indications,” said Robert Connelly, President and Chief Executive Officer of Axcella.

“Axcella’s unique platform provides a tremendous opportunity to address a broad array of diseases and conditions that affect patients’ lives. Together with their extensive knowledge of how amino acids modulate disease pathways and biologies they have the potential to transform drug development,” commented Dr. Tramontin. “I’m extremely proud to be part of this highly innovative and rapidly moving organization.”

Prior to Axcella, Dr. Tramontin was a Partner in McKinsey & Company’s Global Healthcare Practice. Across a 13-year career, he advised biopharma executive teams on a wide variety of strategic, operational and organizational topics across the entire value chain. Majority of his work was focused specifically on research, medicine development and early aspects of commercialization. He co-founded and led McKinsey’s technical service line that helps biopharma executives with R&D project investment decisions, portfolio prioritization, risk management, therapeutic area strategy, and product launch strategy.

Before joining McKinsey, he was an experimental neuroscientist conducting neural stem cell research at The Rockefeller University and The University of California San Francisco Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Tramontin holds a Ph.D. in Biology (neuroscience and endocrinology) from the University of Washington.

About Axcella

Axcella is pioneering revolutionary amino acid-based therapeutics as powerful signaling molecules with broad mechanisms of action applicable to a range of severe diseases. Amino acids critically and uniquely regulate a wealth of essential disease pathways and biologies. Leveraging its unique platform, Axcella seeks to transform the traditional drug discovery process by significantly accelerating the speed of candidate generation to clinical validation within months. The company has translated its discoveries into compounds that have been tested in multiple clinical studies to date, with lead programs in NAFLD/NASH, intractable epilepsies and atrophic diseases, and a rich pipeline. Axcella was founded by Flagship VentureLabs and has received financing from Flagship Pioneering, alongside co-investors Fidelity Research & Management Group, Gurnet Point Capital and Nestlé Health Science. Axcella is based in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, visit www.axcellahealth.com.