Flagship Pioneering Leadership

Noubar Afeyan (Western ; born in 1962) is a Lebanese-born American entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist of Armenian origin. He is best known for co-founding the biotechnology company Moderna, through his venture capital firm, Flagship Pioneering, and for co-founding humanitarian projects such as Aurora Prize and The Future Armenian.

Prakash Raman is a Senior Partner, Chief Business Development Officer at Flagship Pioneering and is based in Acton, Massachusetts. He has worked as Associate Director, Research Project Management at Novartis; Head, Project Management for Infectious Diseases Research at AstraZeneca; and Executive Director, Strategic Alliances at Novartis Institutes For Biomedical Research, Inc.. Prakash attended Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT) between 1986 and 1991, vivek vidyalaya between 1982 and 1984, and University of Wisconsin-Madison between 1991 and 1997.

Stephen Michael Hahn (born January 22, 1960) is an American physician who served as the Commissioner of Food and Drugs from 2019 to 2021. Before becoming Commissioner, he was an oncologist serving as Chief Medical Executive of the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Christine Heenan serves as Flagship’s senior partner and chief communications officer, overseeing communications, external affairs, brand and marketing for Flagship and its enterprise companies. She also serves as an advisor the dozens of Flagship-founded companies in its broader ecosystem. She is the founder and former president of Clarendon Group, a consulting firm focused on social impact, communications, advocacy, and leadership voice. While at Clarendon she advised clients including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Institute, the Whitehead Institute, the Social Science Research Council, CARE USA, University of Miami, the Rockefeller Family Office, philanthropist Donald Sussman, and other notable organizations, leaders, and philanthropists.

She served as Senior Vice President for Global Policy & Advocacy at The Rockefeller Foundation, where she led the Foundation’s policy, program influence, partnerships, and communications teams, as well as its regional teams in Asia, Africa and Italy. She also oversaw the Bellagio and Fellows unit. While at Rockefeller, she led the creation of #Solvable, a global platform for highlighting the UN Sustainable Development Goals featuring more than 45 mini-films, an acclaimed podcast, and an award-winning documentary film. She also helped conceive and launch the “Without Mom” campaign, a multi-country effort to raise awareness for preventable maternal mortality launched during Mom Congress on Capitol Hill in 2019.

From 2008 to 2015, Heenan was Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications for Harvard University, overseeing its communications, government relations, and digital strategy teams in Cambridge, Boston, and Washington, DC. During the Clinton Administration she served in the White House as a Senior Policy Analyst and speechwriter, focused primarily on health care policy, women’s issues, and other areas of domestic policy.

Heenan was an adjunct assistant professor of public policy at the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and a Freshman Seminar instructor at Harvard College, teaching on communications in policy making. In 2010, Heenan was awarded a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center at Harvard. She was previously a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, and now serves as Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where she is part of the teaching team for a new and highly participatory class at HBS called “Conversations on Leadership.”

Heenan began her career in business strategy consulting for Telesis and SJS - spinoffs of Boston Consulting Group - working on business process analysis, cost analysis, market strategy, and strategic planning for national and international corporations including Corning, Rubbermaid, Ahlstrom, and IKEA. She has served on a number of boards focused on child development, education, and economic policy, and now serves on the boards of the David Rockefeller Fund and the University of Rhode Island. She and her family live in New York and Rhode Island.

Chuck Carelli is a Partner and CFO at Flagship Pioneering. Chuck joined the firm in 2009 and brings more than 25 years of financial management, operations, and transaction experience to Flagship. His responsibilities include: managing the financial and legal aspects of firm operations at the fund and early stage portfolio company levels; business structure management; financing, liquidity, and M&A transaction execution; investor engagement at the fund and early stage portfolio company levels; and financial reporting, tax, treasury, and compliance oversight.

Prior to joining Flagship, Chuck spent 13 years at three NASDAQ-listed Massachusetts-based biotech companies; most recently as CFO of Exact Sciences, and before that in senior financial roles at Alkermes and Creative BioMolecules. He began his career as a CPA in the Boston office of Deloitte. Chuck holds a B.A. in accounting from Assumption College.

Jeff joined Flagship Pioneering in 2019 as CFO, Flagship Labs. In this role, he is responsible for leading finance, real estate, and procurement across the Flagship Enterprise and works closely with Flagship leadership as well as our growing portfolio of ProtoCo and NewCo companies.

Luciano Rossetti, M.D., is Flagship Pioneering’s Chief Medical Officer and the Head of Research & Development for Flagship’s newly formed initiative Pioneering Medicines.

Luciano joined Flagship in January 2021, and his leadership brings significant relationships, clinical expertise, and industry insight to both Flagship and Pioneering Medicines. With deep experience in global clinical development, he will provide expert advice and direction on clinical assets and play a pivotal role in ensuring R&D and clinical operations excellence across the Flagship ecosystem. As head of R&D for Pioneering Medicines, he will support Flagship Pioneering’s Executive Partner, Paul Biondi and the Pioneering Medicines Leadership Team in conceiving and building a portfolio of unique medicines sourced from the broad spectrum of scientific platforms within the Flagship ecosystem of companies.

Prior to joining Flagship, he served for six years as Global Head of Research & Development at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, where he led the R&D organization’s rigorous pipeline prioritization; delivered global therapeutic approvals across several cancer indications and in multiple sclerosis; and played a leading role in establishing and directing global strategic alliances. He previously served as Merck & Co. Senior Vice President, late-stage clinical development and before that was in charge of end-to-end R&D strategy across all therapeutic areas as head of Global Scientific Strategy.

Prior to joining Merck & Co. in 2006, Luciano spent 18 years in academic medicine as Professor of Medicine and Molecular Pharmacology and leader of the Diabetes Research & Training Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications in leading journals.

Luciano is a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Rome University Medical School and of Yale University Medical School. He holds a Doctorate in Medicine from the Trieste University Medical School, Italy.

Michael Rosenblatt, M.D., joined Flagship Pioneering in 2016. He plays a key role in Flagship’s internal venture creation team during the conception and launch of the next generation of pioneering biotechnology companies as well as serving as an ongoing strategic resource for all companies in the Flagship ecosystem by supporting their clinical development strategies. Additionally, he will serve on the board of directors of several portfolio companies; currently, he is on the board of directors of the Flagship companies Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Cygnal Therapeutics, and Ohana Biosciences. In addition, he chairs or serves on the scientific or clinical advisory committees of several Flagship companies.

Michael joined Flagship from Merck, where he was executive vice president and chief medical officer from 2009 to 2016. During his career, he has held appointments as Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine; Robert H. Ebert Professor of Molecular Medicine and George R. Minot Professor of Medicine, both at Harvard Medical School; president, Harvard faculty dean and senior vice president for academic programs of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Michael is the holder of 19 patents and is author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed papers and commentaries.

After receiving his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Columbia University, Michael earned his M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard. His internship, residency and endocrinology training were all at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1981 he was named chief of the Endocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. Michael was named senior vice president for research at Merck, Sharpe & Dohme Research Laboratories in 1984, and spent nearly a decade at Merck, co-leading the worldwide development of alendronate (FOSAMAX), Merck’s bisphosphonate for osteoporosis and bone disorders. In leading most of Merck’s international research efforts, he established two major basic research institutes. He also headed Merck Research’s worldwide University and Industry Relations Department.

Over the course of his career Michael has served as a founding scientist, scientific advisory board member, or director of more than a dozen biopharmaceutical companies, including ProScript, Millennium, Human Genome Sciences, and Radius Pharmaceuticals.

Michael is the recipient of the Fuller Albright Award for his work on parathyroid hormone, the Vincent du Vigneaud Award in peptide chemistry and biology, and the Chairman’s Award from Merck. He is a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, and the research advisory committees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Boston.

Noubar Afeyan (Western ; born in 1962) is a Lebanese-born American entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist of Armenian origin. He is best known for co-founding the biotechnology company Moderna, through his venture capital firm, Flagship Pioneering, and for co-founding humanitarian projects such as Aurora Prize and The Future Armenian.

Noubar Afeyan (Western ; born in 1962) is a Lebanese-born American entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist of Armenian origin. He is best known for co-founding the biotechnology company Moderna, through his venture capital firm, Flagship Pioneering, and for co-founding humanitarian projects such as Aurora Prize and The Future Armenian.