Noubar Afeyan

Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. He is also co-founder and board chairman of Moderna. Flagship has developed more than 100 scientific ventures resulting in over $100 billion in aggregate value, thousands of patents and patent applications, and more than 50 drugs in clinical development.

Prior to founding Flagship Pioneering, Noubar was the founder and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems, a leader in bio-instrumentation that grew to $100 million in annual revenues. After PerSeptive’s acquisition by Perkin Elmer/​Applera Corporation in 1998, he became senior vice president and chief business officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of Celera Genomics.

In addition to his role at Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), the pioneering messenger RNA medicines company, he is also co-founder and board chairman of Generate Biomedicines, Tessera Therapeutics, Alltrna, Apriori Bio, and ProFound Therapeutics. Previously, he was a member of the founding team, director, and investor in highly successful ventures including Chemgenics Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Color Kinetics (acquired by Philips), Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), and Affinnova (acquired by AC Nielsen).

Noubar entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his PhD in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. He has written numerous scientific publications and is the inventor of over 100 patents. He was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management from 2000 to 2016, and a lecturer at Harvard Business School until 2020. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy.