Tessera Therapeutics announced Thursday that ex-AbbVie executive Michael Severino, M.D. will take the helm of the young biotech.
Flagship Founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan/The Boston Globe/Getty
Flagship Pioneering company Tessera Therapeutics, which is pioneering gene writing technology announced Thursday that ex-AbbVie executive Michael Severino, M.D. will take the helm of the young biotech.
Severino, who will also serve as CEO-partner of Flagship, was previously vice chair and president of the Illinois-based biopharma company.
“The emerging tools of Genetic Medicine represent a powerful new category of technology that has the potential to change the way we treat human disease and build one of the great companies in our industry,” Severino said in a statement. “I am excited by the potential of Tessera’s GENE WRITING platforms and look forward to leading the next phase of our mission to cure disease by writing in the code of life.”
Severino will bring more than two decades of biopharmaceutical leadership experience to the role.
During his eight-year tenure with AbbVie, he oversaw a number of new drugs and helped build market-leading brands in hematologic oncology, immunology and neuroscience, most recently focusing on expanding the labels for autoimmune medicines Rinvoq and Skyrizi in 2021.
Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, who is also a Tessera co-founder and board member noted that Severino will play a critical role at Flagship as CEO-Partner. Afeyan said that Severino’s R&D expertise and years of experience leading innovative strategies for notable biopharmaceutical companies will help drive the company’s growth and translation of its pioneering technology.
Tessara’s proprietary GENE WRITING platform aims to enable clinicians and scientists to cure illness at its source by writing therapeutic messages into the human genome, Geoffrey von Maltzahn, who served as the company’s founding CEO, will transition to board chair and will continue to be actively involved in the company’s efforts.
Severino is far from the first big name Flagship has attracted. Former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D., joined Flagship as a CEO-partner in 2021 and was tapped to lead newly launched Harbinger Health, its early cancer detection arm, in December 2021.
Since 2000, Flagship has invested in over 100 medical technologies and 25 IPOs. To date, the company has pumped more than $2.9 billion in capital into fledgling biotech firms, and its current focus is on large, long-term platforms that aim to revolutionize disease therapy in the future.
What this new leadership structure truly brings to the table remains to be seen, but suffice it to say that Flagship certainly continues to up its game when it comes to healthcare investing.
