Cellarity Appoints Dr. Sandra Horning to Board of Directors

During her tenure at Roche, Dr. Horning led global product development and secured approval for 15 new medicines across numerous indications from oncology to autoimmune diseases

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cellarity, a life sciences company founded by Flagship Pioneering to transform the way medicines are created, announced today the appointment of Sandra Horning, M.D., to the Company’s Board of Directors. As former Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Product Development of Roche, Dr. Horning brings extensive experience and expertise in successfully advancing novel medicines to patients for a wide range of diseases and is widely recognized for her outstanding work as a drug developer, translational researcher, patient advocate, and respected mentor.

“Sandra has made incredible contributions to medicine, bringing to patients important new medicines in some of the hardest to treat diseases,” said Stephen Berenson, Chairperson of Cellarity’s Board of Directors and Managing Partner at Flagship Pioneering. “Her exceptional career spans from leading clinical trials to overseeing all therapeutic areas for global product development for Roche and Genentech. We welcome Sandra’s expertise and guidance as Cellarity develops an entirely new approach to drug creation to deliver transformative medicines for a broad range of unmet medical needs.”

“What I find most impressive about Cellarity is that they embrace the full complexity of human disease, beyond unique molecular targets, and this creates enormous opportunity to discover and develop novel medicines across multiple diseases,” said Dr. Horning. “The team at Cellarity is not only building a transformative drug creation platform, but they are also creating transformative efficiency in drug discovery. I look forward to helping Cellarity drive a new age in therapeutic research.”

Fabrice Chouraqui, Ph.D., CEO of Cellarity and a CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering, concluded, “Sandra has made a tremendous impact in all aspects of drug development, and she continues to be a game changer for this industry. We are aligned in our deep commitment to dramatically improve how the industry discovers and develops drugs, and we look forward to her guidance and experience in making great medicines for patients.”

Dr. Horning serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of Gilead, Inc., Moderna, Inc., EQRx, Inc., and Olema Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She was the Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Product Development of Roche, Inc., until her retirement in 2019. During her 10-year career at Roche and Genentech, she helped bring 15 new medicines to patients in disease areas, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and blindness. Prior to her career at Roche, Dr. Horning spent 25 years as a practicing oncologist, investigator, and tenured professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she remains a professor of medicine emerita. Dr. Horning has authored more than 300 publications and served on the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed medical journals. She served as President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) from 2005 to 2006. Dr. Horning has received numerous awards and recognition throughout her career, including being named the 2020 Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Woman of the Year.

About Cellarity

Cellarity's mission is to fundamentally transform the way medicines are created. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2017, Cellarity has developed unique capabilities combining high-resolution data, single cell technologies, and machine learning to encode biology, predict interventions, and purposefully design breakthrough medicines. By focusing on the cellular changes that underlie disease instead of a single target, Cellarity’s approach uncovers new biology and treatments and is applicable to a vast array of disease areas. The company currently has programs underway in metabolic disease, hematology, immuno-oncology, and respiratory disease. The company has raised $123 million as part of a Series B funding round with contributions from funds and accounts managed by Blackrock, The Baupost Group, Banque Pictet on behalf of their clients, and eight other investors alongside Flagship Pioneering. For more info, visit www.cellarity.com.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform 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 $100 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.9 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AXLA), Codiak BioSciences (NASDAQ: CDAK) Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SGTX).

Jessica Yingling, Ph.D., press@cellarity.com