Flagship Pioneering Announces New Origination Partners

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 8, 2024 – Today Flagship Pioneering announced the promotions of four new Origination Partners responsible for leading the origination and growth of new pioneering platform companies: Kyle Chiang, Molly Gibson, Armen Mkrtchyan, and Jacob Rubens. Flagship Founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan shared the following remarks.

Kyle Chiang

“Kyle has consistently demonstrated a pioneering mindset, strategic leadership, and a focus on creating high-value companies. He has had a significant impact as a leader both at our Flagship-founded companies and as a core member of Flagship leading explorations with vision and tenacity and managing a high-performing team of Principals and Associates. He has shaped a positive team culture and embraced evolution as key to the origination process and to maximizing value creation.”

Molly Gibson

"Molly has emerged as a leader and team builder at Flagship with a talent for fostering innovation at the confluence of AI and science. She has played an important role advancing Flagship-founded companies including co-founding Generate:Biomedicines and taking operational leadership roles driving science and strategy as it pioneers the use of Generative AI to revolutionize drug discovery and development. Molly has created a motivating and empowering environment for her team, driving technological breakthroughs and impact."

Armen Mkrtchyan

“Armen has spearheaded the creation of and strategy for our Pioneering Intelligence Initiative working to augment the capabilities of Flagship companies, drive AI and machine learning innovation, and originate new platform companies built on AI advances. Under his leadership, the Pioneering Intelligence team has advanced new tools and capabilities, made leaps in new computer science driven explorations, and convened our inaugural AI Summit drawing an incredible group of external experts and thought leaders including several Flagship-founded companies pioneering AI-based platforms and technologies.”

Jacob Rubens

“Jake has demonstrated substantial scientific capabilities, strategic clarity, and an ability to bring people together during his tenure at Flagship. He has made significant impact co-founding new companies, including Flagship-founded Sana Biotechnology, Tessera Therapeutics, and Quotient Therapeutics. Jake has also taken operational leadership roles at Tessera, pioneering the world’s first Gene Writing platform, and at Quotient, pioneering Somatic Genomics. Jake is the first partner who originally joined Flagship as a Summer Fellow and is an inspiring leader of his teams who ensures people’s skills and talents are being developed and celebrated.”

About Our Team Members

Kyle Chiang

Kyle Chiang is an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he leads a team of entrepreneurs responsible for originating and growing new companies. Since joining Flagship, Kyle has held numerous operational roles at Flagship companies including Chief Scientific Officer of Senda Biosciences (now Sail Biomedicines) and Chief Operating Officer of Montai Therapeutics. Prior to joining Flagship in 2021, Kyle served as Chief Operating Officer at LogicBio Therapeutics, where he led regulatory engagements to open an IND for a first-in-class genome editing platform, supported multiple financing rounds including the company’s IPO, and facilitated business development engagements that led to multiple research and strategic collaborations. He was previously with aTyr Pharma holding roles across discovery and clinical teams, serving as a program lead and supporting the intellectual property portfolio strategy. Kyle earned a Ph.D. in macromolecular, cellular structure, and chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute under the mentorship of Professor Ben Cravatt and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology with a minor in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. His undergraduate research on small molecule stabilizers of transthyretin in Professor Jeff Kelly’s group contributed to the discovery of Tafamidis, approved for patients with transthyretin amyloidosis. Kyle is a co-author on more than 40 publications and patents.

Molly Gibson

Molly Gibson is an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering, working to found and grow companies at the intersection of biology and machine learning including Generate: Biomedicines, Tessera Therapeutics, and Cobalt Biomedicines (merged into Sana Biotechnology). She currently serves as co-founder and chief innovation officer of Generate Biomedicines. Prior to joining Flagship in 2017, she led computational biology at Kaleido Biosciences. Molly received a Ph.D. in computational and systems biology from Washington University in Saint Louis in the Center for Genome Sciences, with the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Molly also holds a B.S. in computer science from Truman State University in Missouri. While at Washington University, she collaborated with St. Louis Children's Hospital to study the effects of early life interventions on development of the preterm infant gut microbiome and health outcomes. She was also a leader in science outreach and education serving as director and board member of the Young Scientist Program leading over 100 active volunteer scientists with the mission of bringing inquiry-based science to disadvantaged K-12 students. Molly’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Science and Nature.

Armen Mkrtchyan

Armen Mkrtchyan is an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering and leads Pioneering Intelligence, an initiative to institutionalize and expand the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across Flagship and portfolio companies, and to help drive Flagship’s efforts in AI research to identify breakthrough innovation platforms in human health and sustainability. Armen joined Flagship from McKinsey & Company where he was an Associate Partner. He led large corporate transformations, client development efforts, and engagements on strategy and operations with a focus on the impact of AI in the automotive, aerospace, and high-tech/electronics sectors. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the American University of Armenia and established the Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center (EPIC), an incubation center to further the knowledge and practice of entrepreneurship in Armenia. Armen was awarded a Ph.D. in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of North Dakota.

Jacob Rubens

Jacob (Jake) Rubens, Ph.D., is an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he leads a venture-creation team that founds and grows companies based on new biotechnology. Jake is a co-founder of Quotient Therapeutics, Tessera Therapeutics, and Sana Biotechnology, and launched Kaleido Biosciences. Jake is the President of Quotient and Chief Innovation Officer and founding Chief Scientific Officer at Tessera, where he led research from 2018 through 2021. Previously, Jake was the Head of Innovation at Cobalt Biomedicine, where he co-invented and developed the company’s Fusosome platform prior to its merger with Sana Biotechnology. Jake received his Ph.D. in microbiology from MIT, working in the Synthetic Biology Center with Professor Tim Lu with the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. At MIT Jake invented gene circuits that allow engineered cells to do novel analog, digital, and hybrid computations, enabling the emerging field of “intelligent” cell therapies. Jake’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Nature and Nature Communications.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $70 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.6 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $27 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 40 companies, including Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Generate:Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB) and Tessera Therapeutics.