John Sterling, GEN’s Editor-in-Chief, has been attending BPI since its inception, 20 years ago! Here, he took a minute away from the talks and posters to join Julianna LeMieux, PhD, Deputy Editor-in-Chief—who was at BPI for her second time—to talk about the first day of the meeting, the sessions they attended, and the trends that they are noticing. John also reflects on 20 years in the industry.

Avak Kahvejian, PhD, leads a team that invents and launches new therapeutic platforms as a general partner at Flagship Pioneering, the venture/accelerator giant. Speaking on GEN’s “Close to the Edge” video interview series, Kahvejian recounted his career from life sciences executive to a life sciences inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO, who has founded more than 10 companies.   After earning his BSc and PhD degrees from McGill University, Kahvejian held positions at Helicos BioSciences—a next-generation sequencing pioneer where he developed and commercialized the world’s first single-molecule DNA sequencer—before joining Flagship in 2011. Based in Cambridge, MA, Flagship has built a primary portfolio of companies focused on life sciences or “human health” and sustainability, as well as on AI. The firm’s best-known companies that have grown from startups include Moderna, the mRNA vaccine giant that has brought several COVID-19 vaccines to approval, and Generate:Biomedicines, a developer of therapeutics based on de novo protein generation. Generate was among multiple high-value public and private companies created by Kahvejian and his team. Other companies include:

• Seres Therapeutics, developer of the first microbiome therapy platform
• Ring Therapeutics, a developer of gene therapies based on its commensal virome platform
• Cellarity, which aims to design medicines targeting the full cellular and molecular complexity of disease as opposed to a single molecular target
• Abiologics, a developer of programmable medicines combining generative artificial intelligence and high throughput chemical protein synthesis (it emerged from stealth mode in July)
• Cygnal Therapeutics, now part of Sonata Therapeutics, whose Network Medicines™ reprogram diseased cells to become “coordinators of cure” by releasing a defined array of signals designed to precisely coordinate multicellular networks to drive disease resolution

Kahvejian also discussed the lessons to be learned from Laronde, the circular RNA therapy developer where he served as a board member and founding CEO months before it announced an eye-popping $440 million Series B financing in 2021. Laronde merged with Senda Biosciences last year to form Sail Biosciences, following conflicts over the reliability of data from historic GLP-1 experiments for the company’s therapeutic peptide. In a wide-ranging conversation, Kahvejian also offered insights into Flagship’s fundamental strategy for selecting companies, how early in the business cycle Flagship invests in a startup, and how long Flagship likes to stay invested in a company. Kahvejian discussed the rise of AI and weighed in on its potential risk of hype and potential benefit of delivering the hope of finally addressing longtime challenges, such as the cost and time it takes to develop new drugs.