Brian M. Alexander Joins Valo Health as Chief Executive Officer and Flagship Pioneering as CEO-Partner

Cam­bridge, Mass., Novem­ber 13, 2024 – Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing, the bio­plat­form inno­va­tion com­pa­ny, and Valo Health today announced that indus­try leader, Bri­an M. Alexan­der, M.D., M.P.H. has been appoint­ed Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Valo Health and CEO-Part­ner of Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing. Dr. Alexan­der brings two decades of biotech­nol­o­gy, bio­phar­ma, and med­ical lead­er­ship, most recent­ly as SVP, Research & Devel­op­ment and Head of Boston Roche Inno­va­tion Cen­ter (BRIC), for Roche/​Genentech and pre­vi­ous­ly as CEO of Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine. Valo also announced the appoint­ments of Brett Black­man, Ph.D., as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer and Travis Wil­son as a mem­ber of its Board of Directors.

Dr. Alexan­der has a stel­lar record of suc­cess­ful lead­er­ship in health­care inno­va­tion across a wide range of dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions. His appoint­ment as CEO of Valo Health builds on his exper­tise lever­ag­ing cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies to accel­er­ate drug dis­cov­ery and deliv­er trans­for­ma­tive med­i­cines to patients world­wide. As CEO-Part­ner at Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing, he will con­tribute to advanc­ing Flagship’s pio­neer­ing ven­tures and unlock­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth and impact.

“I am delight­ed to wel­come Bri­an Alexan­der as the CEO of Valo Health and a Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing CEO-Part­ner,” said Paul Bion­di, Exec­u­tive Chair, Valo and Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing Gen­er­al Part­ner and Pres­i­dent, Pio­neer­ing Med­i­cines. ​“Brian’s proven lead­er­ship across biotech­nol­o­gy makes him well-posi­tioned to guide Valo into its next chap­ter of growth, as it har­ness­es AI-dri­ven tech­nol­o­gy and high-qual­i­ty patient data to dis­cov­er and devel­op life-chang­ing medicines.”

“I am deeply hon­ored to join Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing and Valo Health at such a piv­otal time for the com­pa­ny,” said Dr. Alexan­der. ​“Our mis­sion at Valo is to accel­er­ate the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of bet­ter med­i­cines for patients by fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing the tra­di­tion­al dis­cov­ery par­a­digm, and I am excit­ed to lead and work with the amaz­ing tal­ent at Valo to deliv­er mean­ing­ful advance­ments for patients using the pow­er of AI and human-cen­tric data.”

About Bri­an Alexander

Bri­an Alexan­der, M.D., M.P.H., most recent­ly was an SVP for R&D at Roche/​Genentech, where he worked to lever­age data sci­ence and AI/ML approach­es for nov­el clin­i­cal devel­op­ment strate­gies. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he led Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine as CEO, serv­ing the mis­sion to trans­form can­cer care by lever­ag­ing mol­e­c­u­lar infor­ma­tion to improve clin­i­cal deci­sion mak­ing and ther­a­peu­tic development. 

Dr. Alexan­der pre­vi­ous­ly co-found­ed the Glob­al Coali­tion for Adap­tive Research, to speed the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of treat­ments for patients with rare and dead­ly dis­eases through pio­neer­ing, patient-cen­tric clin­i­cal tri­al designs. He was also the found­ing direc­tor of the Harvard/​MIT Cen­ter for Reg­u­la­to­ry Science.

Dr. Alexan­der pre­vi­ous­ly served as an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Har­vard Med­ical School and as a radi­a­tion oncol­o­gist at the Dana-Far­ber Can­cer Insti­tute and Brigham and Women’s Hos­pi­tal. He received his MD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, MPH from the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health, and served as a White House Fel­low in the George W. Bush and Barack Oba­ma administrations. 

Brett Black­man Ele­vat­ed to Chief Oper­at­ing Officer

As the new­ly appoint­ed Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of Valo, Brett Black­man is respon­si­ble for cor­po­rate oper­a­tions and strat­e­gy, busi­ness devel­op­ment, and alliance man­age­ment. Black­man, on the found­ing team of Valo, most recent­ly served as Chief Busi­ness Offi­cer and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer. Pri­or to join­ing Valo, Black­man worked for Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing and served on the found­ing teams and as oper­a­tional Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer and strate­gic research advi­sor for sev­er­al Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing ecosys­tem com­pa­nies includ­ing com­pa­nies that are now Reper­toire Immune Med­i­cines, Omega Ther­a­peu­tics (OMGA) and Sail Bio­med­i­cines. Read Brett’s full bio here.

“Brett has been a key mem­ber of the Valo team since its ear­li­est days and has been instru­men­tal in its growth,” said Bion­di. ​“Brett’s strate­gic and oper­a­tional exper­tise will be crit­i­cal as we focus on exe­cut­ing our strat­e­gy and scal­ing our plat­form to achieve impact­ful results for patients.”

Travis Wil­son Appoint­ed to Board of Directors

Travis Wil­son brings more than 20 years of life sci­ences invest­ing and exec­u­tive expe­ri­ence to his role as Board Direc­tor. He has served in roles at pri­vate and growth equi­ty firms and was pre­vi­ous­ly the Pres­i­dent and CEO of Stealth Bio­Ther­a­peu­tics, a mito­chon­dr­i­al focused com­pa­ny devel­op­ing a ther­a­peu­tic plat­form to treat com­mon and rare dis­eases. Travis has also served as a board direc­tor for non­clin­i­cal, late-stage clin­i­cal, and com­mer­cial life sci­ences com­pa­nies, pro­vid­ing oper­a­tional and man­age­ment sup­port across a broad spec­trum of ther­a­peu­tic areas, includ­ing orphan dis­eases, oncol­o­gy, immunol­o­gy, car­dio-renal dis­or­ders, neu­rol­o­gy, and oph­thal­mol­o­gy. Read Travis’ full bio here.

“With a track record of steer­ing high-growth com­pa­nies through com­plex inno­va­tions and mar­ket land­scapes, Travis’ insights will be invalu­able in guid­ing Valo Health’s strate­gic direc­tion and fos­ter­ing sus­tain­able growth,” said Bion­di. ​“We are thrilled to wel­come Travis to the board, and we look for­ward to tap­ping into his strate­gic acu­men and deep indus­try knowl­edge as we pro­pel Valo’s growth and impact.”

About Flag­ship Pioneering

Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing invents and builds bio­plat­form com­pa­nies, each with the poten­tial for mul­ti­ple prod­ucts that trans­form human health or sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Since its launch in 2000, Flag­ship has orig­i­nat­ed and fos­tered more than 100 sci­en­tif­ic ven­tures, result­ing in more than $75 bil­lion in aggre­gate val­ue. Flag­ship is oper­at­ing with $14 bil­lion of assets under man­age­ment as of its lat­est cap­i­tal raise, announced in July 2024. The cur­rent Flag­ship ecosys­tem com­pris­es 43 com­pa­nies, includ­ing Foghorn Ther­a­peu­tics (NAS­DAQ: FHTX), Mod­er­na (NAS­DAQ: MRNA), Omega Ther­a­peu­tics (NAS­DAQ: OMGA), Sana Biotech­nol­o­gy (NAS­DAQ: SANA), Gen­er­ate Bio­med­i­cines, Inari, Indi­go Agri­cul­ture, and Tessera Ther­a­peu­tics.

About Valo Health

Valo Health, Inc is a biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny focused on uti­liz­ing large scale data and AI-dri­ven com­pu­ta­tion to dis­cov­er and devel­op ther­a­peu­tics. Valo aims to ful­ly inte­grate human-cen­tric data across the entire drug devel­op­ment life cycle into a sin­gle uni­fied archi­tec­ture, there­by accel­er­at­ing the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of life-chang­ing drugs while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly reduc­ing costs, time, and fail­ure rates. The com­pa­ny’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™ is an end-to-end drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment plat­form with a uni­fied archi­tec­ture designed to trans­form data into valu­able insights that may accel­er­ate dis­cov­er­ies and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline of pro­grams, ini­tial­ly focused on car­dio­vas­cu­lar meta­bol­ic dis­eases. Found­ed by Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing and head­quar­tered in Lex­ing­ton, MA, Valo also has offices in New York, NY and Tel Aviv, Israel. To learn more, vis­it val​o​health​.com.

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