Flagship Pioneering Announces Appointment of Christian Schade as Growth Partner

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 30, 2023 -- Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, announced today that pharma and biotech leader Christian Schade is joining as Growth Partner. In this role, he will help scale and grow several Flagship-founded companies, working together with leaders at Flagship and its ecosystem of companies on organizational development, long-term strategy, financing, and business development.

Schade brings more than thirty years of public and private pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience to this role. He joins Flagship from Aprea Therapeutics where he was previously President and Chief Executive Officer and has served as a member of the board since 2016, including as Chairman since 2020. Schade has served in leadership positions at several companies focused on advancing human health including Novira, Omthera Pharmaceuticals, and Medarex. He also brings broad corporate finance expertise from his tenure in investment banking including at Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase & Co.

“Chris has a proven track record of growing organizations and brings diverse experience and deep expertise spanning corporate strategy, finance, and business development to Flagship and our companies,” said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. “I am pleased to welcome Chris to our team and look forward to his contributions to our companies as they drive toward value creation and growth.”

"I’m thrilled to join Flagship Pioneering and for the opportunity to partner with Flagship’s incredible leadership team,” said Chris Schade, Growth Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “I look forward to applying my experience bringing biotech and pharma companies to scale and helping accelerate the impact of the pioneering science and innovative bioplatforms underpinning Flagship-founded companies.”

About Chris Schade

Christian S. Schade served as Aprea Therapeutics' President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board since June 2016. He was appointed Chairman of the Board in September 2020. Schade has more than 30 years of private and public pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience, as well as broad corporate finance expertise from his tenure in investment banking. Prior to joining Aprea, from 2014 to 2015, he was Chief Executive Officer of Novira, a privately held antiviral drug discovery company until it was acquired by Johnson & Johnson.

Prior to joining Novira, Schade was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Omthera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Omthera”), a Nasdaq‑listed specialty pharmaceuticals company focused on the development and commercialization of new therapies for dyslipidemia until it was acquired by AstraZeneca Plc. He also was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at NYSE‑listed NRG Energy Inc., and from 2000 to 2009, he was Senior Vice President of Administration and Chief Financial Officer at Medarex, Inc. (“Medarex”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on antibody‑based therapeutic products for oncology, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases until it was acquired by Bristol‑Myers Squibb Company.

Before joining Medarex, Schade served as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch in London and held various corporate finance and capital markets positions in New York and London for both Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase & Co. Schade currently serves as chair of the board of directors of Sapience Therapeutics, Inc., and Integra LifeSciences Inc., where he chairs the Audit and Finance Committees. Schade received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. from Princeton University.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform 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 more than $100 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.1 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 42 transformative companies, including Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), and Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB).