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Flagship Pioneering Appoints Angela Hwang as CEO-Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Metaphore Biotechnologies

PRNewswire 20-Nov-2024 8:00 AM

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, and Metaphore Biotechnologies, a Flagship-founded biotechnology company designing novel therapeutics by combining machine learning and molecular mimicry, today announced that Angela Hwang, MBA, will join Flagship Pioneering as CEO-Partner, and Metaphore as Chief Executive Officer, effective January 1, 2025.

Most recently, Hwang served as Chief Commercial Officer and President of the Global Biopharmaceuticals Business at Pfizer. During her tenure at Pfizer, Hwang helped bring 600 medicines and vaccines to patients across 185 countries. Her leadership was pivotal in addressing major global health priorities, including cancer, COVID-19, infectious diseases, inflammation and immunology, rare diseases, cardiovascular/metabolic disorders, and preventative care with vaccines. She led the launch of the world's first COVID-19 vaccine in 2020 and the first oral antiviral treatment one year later. In addition, over her tenure, Hwang executed dozens of business development deals to grow and expand Pfizer's portfolio.

"Angela's nearly three decades of experience successfully developing and delivering medicines to patients worldwide will be a critical addition to our ecosystem," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. "Her deep understanding of the pharmaceutical landscape and proven track record in driving growth and innovation will be pivotal as Metaphore embarks on its next chapter of development."

"Over the course of her career, Angela has become one of the industry's most prolific and successful pharma leaders," said Lovisa Afzelius, Ph.D., MBA, General Partner at Flagship Pioneering and Co-Founder and CEO of Metaphore. "I am thrilled to pass on leadership of Metaphore to Angela next year, and am confident that her roles in creating some of the world's most impactful medicines and partnerships will be invaluable to Metaphore as we seek to unlock breakthroughs that outperform today's drugs for maximum patient impact."

"Joining Metaphore and the Flagship ecosystem is an incredible opportunity to be at the forefront of innovative science and technology," said Hwang. "By reducing complex molecular interactions to a few key molecular features that drive specific, defined biological functions, Metaphore's MIMIC™ platform has tremendous potential to create medicines poised to disrupt the treatment landscape of a wide range of diseases.

I look forward to leading the talented team in advancing the company's pipeline and making a meaningful impact on patients' lives worldwide."

Earlier this year, Metaphore announced a research collaboration with Novo Nordisk to develop up to two next-generation long acting, multitargeting therapeutics in the GLP1-R biology space for obesity management leveraging Metaphore's unique MIMIC platform.

About Angela Hwang
Angela Hwang joins Metaphore with over 27 years of experience at Pfizer, where she held various leadership roles, including most recently Chief Commercial Officer and President of the Global Biopharmaceuticals Business and member of Pfizer's executive leadership team. In these roles, Hwang and her organization of 26,000 colleagues brought critical therapies in oncology, internal medicine, rare diseases, inflammation and immunology, vaccines and hospital injectables to patients around the world and led many groundbreaking product launches, including the world's first COVID-19 vaccine and the first oral antiviral treatment. Currently, Hwang also serves on the Board of Directors of UPS.

Hwang is consistently ranked among the world's top leaders in healthcare and business. Fortune placed her as one of The Most Powerful Women in Business four years in a row from 2020 to 2023. In 2021, she received The President's Award from the National Diversity Council and was also named an A100 Honoree which recognizes the most impactful AAPI leaders. In 2022, Cornell University named Hwang a Robert S. Hatfield Economic Fellow. In 2023, she was recognized as a Ascend A-list Honoree for her professional achievements as an Asian American leader and in 2024, Hwang was selected by CNBC as a Changemaker in Business.

Hwang received a BS in Microbiology from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Cornell University.

About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering invents and builds bioplatform 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 $60 billion in aggregate value. Flagship is operating with $14 billion of assets under management as of its latest capital raise, announced in July 2024. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises over 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FHTX), Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ:OMGA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ:SANA), Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, and Tessera Therapeutics.

About Metaphore Biotechnologies
Metaphore Biotechnologies is harnessing the power of mimicry to make previously intractable drug targets accessible and unlock breakthroughs that outperform today's drugs for maximum patient impact. The company's MIMIC™ platform is a computationally-driven bioplatform designing new therapeutics where function, specificity, and selectivity can be optimized. The company was founded in 2021 by Flagship Pioneering. For more information visit www.metaphorebio.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter at @MetaphoreBio.

Media Contacts

Flagship Pioneering

press@flagshippioneering.com

Metaphore Biotechnologies

Morgan Warners
FGS Global
morgan.warners@fgsglobal.com

Melanie West
FGS Global
melanie.west@fgsglobal.com