A technologist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Noubar Afeyan co-founded Flagship Ventures in 2000. Flagship is a leading venture capital firm focused on creating, financing and building companies that will transform the future of life sciences and cleantech. The firm manages over $600 million funds.
During the past two decades Dr. Afeyan has been a founder of over 20 life science and technology startups. Of these, seven have had successful exits to date at an aggregate value over $4 billion. His first startup was PerSeptive Biosystems (Nasdaq: PBIO), a leader in the bio-instrumentation field. After PerSeptive's acquisition by Applera Corporation, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of Celera Genomics (Nasdaq: CRA), a pioneer in Genomic information. In addition he was involved in the founding and development of ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals, Antigenics, Exact Sciences, Color Kinetics and Adnexus Therapeutics.
Dr. Afeyan is a member of several advisory boards including the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), the Whitehead Institute at M.I.T., the Harvard-M.I.T. Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and the SKOLKOVO School of Management in Moscow. He is also a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Afeyan is co-founder and board member of Armenia 2020 and the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia, two international economic development projects focusing on the former Soviet Republic of Armenia. In 2008 he received an Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award granted to outstanding Americans who have distinguished themselves as U.S. citizens and who have enabled their ancestry groups to maintain their identities while becoming integral parts of American life.
Dr. Afeyan is a Senior Lecturer at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management where he has taught the MBA program’s primary entrepreneurship course since 2000. Dr. Afeyan has authored numerous scientific publications and patents since earning his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from M.I.T. in 1987.
David Berry joined Flagship in 2005, focusing on investing in and founding early stage life science and cleantech ventures. In 2005, he co-founded and helped launch LS9, and most recently co-founded Joule Biotechnologies, where he previously served as the founding Chief Executive Officer. In addition, David serves on the Board of Directors of CGI Pharmaceuticals and works closely with several other portfolio companies.
Dr. Berry was named as the Innovator of the Year by Technology Review in its 2007 TR35 list of world’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35.
He completed his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and was previously awarded a Ph.D. through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) Biological Engineering Division, where he studied the biological effects of complex sugars. He also earned an undergraduate degree in brain and cognitive sciences at M.I.T. He was named as a member of the M.I.T. Corporation, its Board of Trustees, in 2006. Dr. Berry’s work has led to 11 peer-reviewed publications, over 50 patents and applications, as well as over 25 awards and honors including the prestigious Lemelson-M.I.T. Student Prize in 2005 for invention and innovation.
Kenji Harada has more than 20 years of experience in evaluating medical drug candidates, scientific technology platforms and intellectual property portfolios. He joined the life science investment division of JAFCO, the largest venture capital firm in Japan, in 2004. In this role, he evaluates US-based biotech companies for potential investment opportunities, several of which have successfully gone on to become public companies or the subject of significant acquisitions.　Prior to JAFCO, Dr. Harada held positions of increasing responsible within Toray Group, a Japanese pharmaceutical and chemical company, most recently as manager for collaborative research agreements with a number of leading Japanese academic institutions and biotechnology companies.
In addition to his board position at Eleven Biotherapeutics, Dr. Harada also serves on the board of TRACON. An immunologist by training, Dr. Harada earned his PhD in pharmacology at the University of Tokyo.
Mark Levin is an industry visionary with more than 36 years of experience, including 25 years building and operating leading biotech companies. Levin co-founded Third Rock Ventures in 2007 and focuses on the formation, development and business strategy of its portfolio companies, as well as actively identifying and evaluating new investments. He also assumes active leadership roles in its portfolio companies, functioning as Chief Executive Officer through the first 12-18 months post launch.
Levin was co-founder of Mayfield Fund's life sciences effort where he was also the founding Chief Executive Officer of Turalik, Cell Genesys/Abgenix, Focal, Stem Cells and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Mark served as Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals for 12 years. Earlier in his career, Mark was a scientist at Lilly and Genentech.
Levin holds an M.S. in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from Washington University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Friends of Personalized Medicine, and also co-founded upSTART in Cambridge, Mass.
Cary Pfeffer joined Third Rock Ventures in 2007 and drives the firm’s overall interface strategy with pharmaceutical and large biotech companies. Dr. Pfeffer has over 15 years of business development and transaction experience, facilitating the successful development and implementation of leading collaborations across the spectrum of newly emerging and established biotech companies.
Before joining Third Rock Ventures, Dr. Pfeffer founded The Pfeffer Group, which provided business development and strategy advisory services for leading biotechnology and life sciences companies. Prior to joining Third Rock, he spent more than 10 years at Biogen in a variety of executive domestic and international management roles focused on business and market development, product development and commercial operations. Earlier in his career, Dr. Pfeffer spent several years in corporate finance in the Health Care Investment Banking Group of Lehman Brothers.
Dr. Pfeffer earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School and a B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University.