Senda Biosciences Appoints Igor Matushansky as Chief Medical Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Senda Biosciences, Inc., a Flagship Pioneering company harnessing nature to enable the world’s first comprehensive programming of medicines, today announced the appointment of Igor Matushansky, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Matushansky will also serve as an Oncology Senior Advisor for Pioneering Medicines, a unit within Flagship Pioneering.

“I’m delighted to welcome Igor on board as Senda’s first Chief Medical Officer, as we accelerate our efforts to build out our groundbreaking pipeline of programmable medicines,” said Guillaume Pfefer, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Senda Biosciences and CEO-Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “Igor’s significant experience in early clinical strategy and development, as well as his oversight of numerous IND filings and novel clinical trials, will be invaluable to Senda as we work to bring our first wave of targeted, potent, and tunable programmable medicines to the clinic.”

Dr. Matushansky previously served as Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Research and Development at Hookipa Pharma, where he was responsible for bringing novel arenavirus technology from early preclinical to clinical proof of concept. Prior to this, he was Global Head of Oncology Early Development at Daiichi Sankyo, leading the company’s international research unit, which focused on early oncology therapeutic programs, strategy and development. There, he was also responsible for a range of development activities, clinical trials, and proof-of-concept research. He also worked at Novartis as Global Head of the Gene & Cell Therapy Unit, and as Global Clinical Program Head within the Oncology Translational Medicine Unit. He began his career in academia at the Columbia University Medical Center, where he treated sarcoma patients, founded and directed a sarcoma center, and ran a laboratory focused on the molecular basis of sarcomas.

Dr. Matushansky holds a BA from Columbia University, as well as an MD and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He performed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and then completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology, as well as a post-doctoral research fellowship in Cancer Biology, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He remains Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology at Columbia University, where he continues to assist with patient care and educational activities. Additionally, he is currently Chair of Hookipa’s Scientific Advisory Board, member of the Board of Directors at Crescendo Biologics, and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Columbia Venture Technology Program.

“I’m delighted to join the exceptionally talented team at Senda,” said Dr. Matushansky. “The company’s science is incredibly exciting, with the potential to transform our industry by solving one of the primary challenges that has long faced genetic medicines – getting therapies to the cell of choice. I look forward to playing a role in helping bring fully programmable medicines to the many patients that need them.”

About Senda Biosciences

Senda Biosciences, Inc. is committed to bringing life-changing treatments to patients by harnessing millennia of evolution to program human cells both within and to the cell. Senda’s proprietary platform is the first to leverage a universal chemical routing code of natural nanoparticles that enable cross- kingdom intercellular communication. This platform unlocks comprehensive programming of medicines for the first time, allowing Senda to develop a new class of SendRNATM medicines focused initially on powering new frontiers in immunology mRNA-based therapies, with future applications employing other information molecules, including siRNA, gene editors, proteins, and peptides. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Senda was founded by Flagship Pioneering. For more information, visit www.sendabiosciences.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 $90 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.4 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $26 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 45 transformative companies, including Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB) and Tessera Therapeutics.

Pioneering Medicines is a strategic initiative within Flagship Pioneering that is dedicated to conceiving and developing a broad portfolio of life-changing treatments by leveraging and expanding the use of Flagship’s innovations. By harnessing the power of Flagship's multiple scientific platforms, Pioneering Medicines creates and advances novel medicines together with Flagship’s bioplatform companies to accelerate the extension of their portfolios into previously unexplored areas and show that they can be applied more broadly, thereby delivering benefits to more patients, sooner. In addition to its internally financed programs, Pioneering Medicines works with external strategic partners including Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to jointly conceive medicine concepts by combining partners’ R&D priorities with Flagship Pioneering’s unique platform capabilities.

Georgina Vincent, Head of Communications, press@sendabiosciences.com