Today on 18-July-2023, Flagship Pioneering, Inc. and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) announced their collaboration to develop a fresh pipeline of cutting-edge pharmaceuticals. By utilising Flagship’s ecosystem of more than 40 human health companies and numerous biotechnology platforms, Flagship and Pfizer will each invest $50M upfront to explore prospects to establish 10 single-asset programmes. Pfizer will finance each chosen development programme and has the option to purchase them. For each successfully commercialised programme, Flagship and its bio-platform firms will be entitled to receive up to $700M in milestones and royalties.
The exploratory approach will be led by Pioneering Medicines, a Flagship Pioneering programme, in coordination with Pfizer’s research and development leadership. This will promote the formation of a viable portfolio quickly. In Pfizer’s main strategic areas of interest, including in large patient populations and diseases with great potential to benefit from a variety of technological platforms and modalities, the focus will be on solving unmet needs.
“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 of Pioneering Medicines and executive partner of Flagship Pioneering. “This new partnership brings the best of our organisations together to maximise discovery and development potential from inception to impact through a unique innovation supply chain that sets us on a path to potentially realise 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 Flagship
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bio-platform 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, Foghorn Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Moderna, Omega Therapeutics, Sana Biotechnology, Seres Therapeutics and Tessera Therapeutics.
Within Flagship Pioneering, a strategic effort called Pioneering Medicines is committed to envisioning and developing a wide range of treatments that have the potential to change people’s lives. To accelerate the expansion of its portfolio into previously unexplored areas and demonstrate that it can be applied more broadly, Pioneering Medicines develops novel medicines in collaboration with Flagship’s bioplatform companies by leveraging the power of the company’s numerous scientific platforms. As a result, more patients will benefit sooner. Pioneering Medicines collaborates with external strategic partners like Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in addition to its internally funded programmes to jointly develop medical concepts by fusing the partners’ R&D priorities with Flagship Pioneering’s distinctive platform capabilities.
About Pfizer:
Pfizer is a big pharma company which applies science and global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. It 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 its responsibility as one of the world’s premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, Pfizer collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world.
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