Flagship Pioneering Appoints Jason Gardner as CEO-Partner and CEO of Ampersand Biomedicines

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, and Ampersand Biomedicines, a company programming smarter medicines that act specifically at the site of disease and nowhere else, today announced that Jason Gardner, Ph.D., has joined Flagship Pioneering as CEO-Partner, and Ampersand as Chief Executive Officer and member of its Board of Directors.

Gardner brings more than two decades of leadership experience across pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, with deep expertise in drug discovery and development, and a successful track record of securing strategic partnerships, scaling companies, and building teams.

Gardner was most recently the CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Magenta Therapeutics. At Magenta, he led the company as it advanced key programs into the clinic, completed a successful IPO, and scaled to more than 100 employees. Prior to this role, he held multiple positions of increasing responsibility at GSK, including serving as the head of Research & Development in Boston, creating and leading the company's Regenerative Medicine Unit, and establishing partnerships with Harvard's Stem Cell Institute and The Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy. In addition, Gardner was head of the Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery at GSK, where he led a team that oversaw more than 40 programs across five therapeutic areas.

"Jason brings extensive experience that spans the breadth of the biopharma industry, and his presence and leadership will greatly benefit Ampersand and Flagship's ecosystem," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and Co-Founder and Chairman of Ampersand Biomedicines. "As Ampersand focuses on its next stage of growth, Jason's expertise in bringing novel therapeutics from concept to clinic will be crucial in driving Ampersand forward for the ultimate benefit of patients."

"Ampersand is ushering in a drug development revolution to program medicines that effectively target the site of disease without affecting healthy tissue or cells," said Avak Kahvejian, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering General Partner and Co-Founder, Founding CEO and Board Director of Ampersand Biomedicines. "Ampersand will benefit immensely from Jason's leadership, including his successful track record of scaling, partnering, and advancing novel therapeutics and bioplatforms across therapeutic areas, as the company works to realize the vast potential of its AND™ Platform."

"Creating medicines that specifically and safely act on the diseased organ or tissue and nowhere else has long been one of the greatest challenges in drug development," said Jason Gardner, Ph.D., CEO and Board Director of Ampersand Biomedicines and Flagship Pioneering CEO-Partner. "I look forward to leading Ampersand on its mission to program smarter medicines and create a new paradigm in biologics discovery and development."

About Ampersand Biomedicines
Ampersand Biomedicines enables a new way of programming medicines that work precisely where needed in the body and nowhere else. The company's computationally powered Address, Navigate, Design (AND)™ Platform identifies ideal addresses for drug localization and informs the design of AND-Body™ Therapeutics that have the optimal therapeutic effect. The result is smarter biologic medicines that target the site of disease without affecting healthy tissue or cells. Ampersand Biomedicines was founded in 2021 at Flagship Labs, a unit of Flagship Pioneering. For more information, please visit www.ampersand.bio.

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 $90 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.4 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $26 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 45 transformative 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.

Media Contact: 
Olivia Offner; [email protected]

SOURCE Flagship Pioneering