Cellarity Bolsters Executive Team with Appointment of Top-Ranked Wall Street Analyst David Risinger as Chief Financial Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellarity, a life sciences company founded by Flagship Pioneering to develop a new way to discover medicines by targeting the cell, announced today that it has strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of David Risinger as Chief Financial Officer. Risinger joins Cellarity from Morgan Stanley where he served as Managing Director and Head of U.S. Major and Specialty Pharmaceuticals Equity Research. In this role, Risinger will oversee Cellarity's financial function including accounting, financial planning, and investor relations.

"Architecting an entirely new approach to drug discovery requires bringing together leading expertise and deep intellectual agility," said Fabrice Chouraqui, CEO of Cellarity and a CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering. "David brings a broad industry perspective and tremendous financial market expertise to Cellarity. I expect David to contribute significantly to the fast progress of the company after our recent $123 million Series B funding round. His leadership will be instrumental in the development of a next generation Biotech company operating at the confluence of biology, technology, and machine learning to bring breakthrough medicines to patients."

Risinger's career has included positions at Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Dillon Read. Over the past 20 years, he was consistently ranked as a top three Wall Street analyst by Institutional Investor in Major Pharmaceuticals, Specialty Pharmaceuticals, and Healthcare Distribution & Information Technology, and has engaged with numerous companies during their IPO processes.

"It is a privilege to join a company with such immense potential in a role in which I can have a real impact," said David Risinger. "Working with Cellarity to redefine how drugs are discovered and create novel treatments for patients suffering from disease is an opportunity I could not pass up. The traditional drug discovery process has been hampered by inefficiencies and poor productivity, and Cellarity is changing the game. I am thrilled to join an organization dedicated to pushing the boundaries of life sciences to change patient lives for the better."

About David Risinger
David Risinger, CFA, has been highly ranked in multiple Institutional Investor categories for over 20 years, including Major Pharmaceuticals, Specialty Pharmaceuticals, and Healthcare Distribution & Technology. Prior to joining Cellarity, Risinger served as Morgan Stanley's U.S. Major and Specialty Pharmaceuticals analyst after working for 10 years at Merrill Lynch, where he was the U.S. Major Pharmaceutical analyst and Healthcare Team Leader. Prior to assuming coverage of Pharmaceuticals in 2002, Risinger was a top-ranked Healthcare Distribution & Technology analyst at Merrill Lynch. From 1993-1999, David worked at Morgan Stanley, first as a pharmaceutical research associate and then as a lead analyst covering Pharmaceutical Services companies. David started his career in Equity Research at Dillon Read as a Healthcare Provider research assistant after graduating from Bucknell University with a political science degree. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995.

About Cellarity
Cellarity's mission is to bring breakthrough medicines to patients by completely redefining the way drugs are discovered. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2017, Cellarity is designing medicines against the cell as opposed to a single molecular target. The company has developed a unique combination of expertise across network biology, high-resolution data, and machine learning to unlock new treatment options in a vast array of disease areas. Cellarity currently has drug discovery programs underway in metabolic disease, hematology, immuno-oncology and respiratory disease. The company has raised $123 million as part of a Series B funding round with contributions from funds and accounts managed by Blackrock, The Baupost Group, Banque Pictet on behalf of their clients, and eight other investors alongside Flagship Pioneering. 

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 over $90 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.4 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 41 transformative companies, including Denali Therapeutics, Indigo Ag, Moderna, Rubius Therapeutics, Sana Biotechnology, Seres Therapeutics, and Valo Health.

SOURCE Cellarity