Flagship Pioneering has appointed Guillaume Pfefer to serve as CEO-partner of the venture capital firm. He will also become CEO of Kintai Therapeutics, one of the Cambridge, MA-based firm’s portfolio companies.
Pfefer worked most recently at GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: [[ticker:GSK]]), where he was senior vice president and global vaccine leader for Shingrix, the company’s shingles vaccine. He also previously served as president and CEO of Kala Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:KALA]]). His new appointment comes with additional changes to Kintai, a startup founded by Flagship and launched last year to research therapies that tap into the connections between the gut microbiome, the immune system, and the enteric nervous system. Flagship announced Thursday that it is in the process of combining Kintai with another one of the firm’s startups, Sendo Biosciences. Sendo is developing ways to transport therapeutics across biological barriers.
At Kintai, Pfefer will be joined by Scott Plevy, the startup’s new chief scientific officer. Plevy’s experience includes roles at Synlogic and Janssen Immunology Research & Development. Paul-Peter Tak, a former GSK executive who has been Kintai’s CEO, will continue to advise the newly combined Kintai, Flagship said.
