Flagship Pioneering, Inc. and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) today announced the companies have partnered to create a new pipeline of innovative medicines. Under the terms of the novel agreement, Flagship and Pfizer will each invest $50M upfront to explore opportunities to develop 10 single-asset programs by leveraging Flagship’s ecosystem of more than 40 human health companies and multiple biotechnology platforms. Pfizer will fund and have an option to acquire each selected development program. Flagship and its bioplatform companies will be eligible to receive up to $700M in milestones and royalties for each successfully commercialized program.
Pioneering Medicines, an initiative of Flagship Pioneering, working in collaboration with Pfizer’s research and development leadership, will lead the exploration process to drive rapid potential portfolio creation. The focus will be addressing unmet needs within Pfizer’s core strategic areas of interest, including in broad patient populations and diseases with high potential to benefit from a diverse range of technology platforms and modalities.
“Flagship and Pfizer enter into this strategic alliance driven by a shared sense of urgency to develop novel medicines that make a difference for patients,” said Paul Biondi, President, Pioneering Medicines, and Executive Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “This new partnership brings together the best of our organizations to maximize discovery and development potential from inception to impact through a unique innovation supply chain that sets us on a path to potentially realize transformational medicines more quickly and effectively.”
“At Pfizer, we are expanding our efforts to pursue potential breakthrough science with unique approaches and funding mechanisms designed to leverage the dynamic scientific ecosystem,” said Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and President, Worldwide Research, Development and Medical of Pfizer. “This collaboration is an exciting opportunity for Pfizer to bring deep scientific expertise and apply our development and regulatory strength to Flagship’s diverse portfolio of technology platforms, translating early-stage innovation to potential medicines.”
About Pfizer: Breakthroughs That Change Patients’ Lives
At Pfizer, we apply science and our global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. We strive to set the standard for quality, safety and value in the discovery, development and manufacture of health care products, including innovative medicines and vaccines. Every day, Pfizer colleagues work across developed and emerging markets to advance wellness, prevention, treatments and cures that challenge the most feared diseases of our time. Consistent with our responsibility as one of the world’s premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, we collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world. For more than 170 years, we have worked to make a difference for all who rely on us.
About Flagship
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.
Pioneering Medicines is a strategic initiative within Flagship Pioneering that is dedicated to conceiving and developing a broad portfolio of life-changing treatments by leveraging and expanding the use of Flagship’s innovations. By harnessing the power of Flagship’s multiple scientific platforms, Pioneering Medicines creates and advances novel medicines together with Flagship’s bioplatform companies to accelerate the extension of their portfolios into previously unexplored areas and show that they can be applied more broadly, thereby delivering benefits to more patients, sooner. In addition to its internally financed programs, Pioneering Medicines works with external strategic partners including Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to jointly conceive medicine concepts by combining partners’ R&D priorities with Flagship Pioneering’s unique platform capabilities.
