CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Flagship Pioneering, a scientific innovation engine for platforms and products, and Vesalius Therapeutics, a company pioneering a revolutionary platform to redefine common diseases for breakthroughs in treatments, targets and clinical trials, today announced the appointment of Yasir Al-Wakeel, BM BCh (Doctor of Medicine and Surgery), as CEO-Partner of Flagship and CEO of Vesalius. He succeeds John Mendlein, Executive Partner at Flagship Pioneering, who has served as interim CEO and will continue in his role as Executive Chairman.

Dr. Al-Wakeel joins Vesalius from multiple prior executive leadership roles guiding the growth of early- and growth-stage biotechnology companies. Previously, he served in senior roles as a biotech equity analyst and in corporate finance, where he was involved in more than $30 billion in strategic and financial transactions. A physician scientist by training, he held both clinical and academic medical posts in the UK. The combination of clinical medicine, operational, financial, and business development knowledge gives him deep insight into how biotech companies scale to deliver medicines to patients.

“Yasir brings a rare blend of medical expertise, entrepreneurial experience, and visionary leadership that will be invaluable as we seek to harness the breadth of the Vesalius platform and emerging pipeline,” said Doug Cole, M.D., Co-Founder and Board Member of Vesalius and Managing Partner at Flagship Pioneering. “His proven ability to integrate cutting-edge science with strategic execution will propel Vesalius forward and enrich the entire Flagship ecosystem.”

“We have made tremendous recent progress scaling our Physio-Logic platform and defining an initial set of development programs against novel targets for common, complex diseases,” said Mendlein. “With Yasir’s leadership, we will build on this momentum toward a future where diseases are resolved at their molecular roots and treatments are matched precisely to the patients who need them most.”

Founded in 2019 by Flagship Pioneering, Vesalius is redefining common diseases to identify previously unrecognized groups of patients who are likely to respond favorably to treatments by targeting novel points of intervention. Using large-scale human genetics, genomics, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models, and artificial intelligence, the company’s Physio-Logic platform genetically validates novel molecular targets to identify causal drivers of diseases. This approach has the potential to accelerate drug discovery, increase the probability of success, and enable more efficient clinical trials.

In November 2024, Vesalius signed a multi-target strategic alliance with GSK to discover and develop novel treatments for Parkinson’s disease and an undisclosed neurodegenerative indication. Vesalius’s internal development efforts include novel programs in three therapeutic areas: pulmonary diseases, neurodegeneration, and metabolic diseases. The company expects to nominate multiple development candidates within the next year.

“The definitions of many common diseases are centuries old and often mask genetically distinct conditions,” said Dr. Al-Wakeel. “The Vesalius platform stands out in its ability to recreate genome-wide association studies in a dish with thousands of iPSC cell lines, uniquely applying Mendelian randomization to uncover new disease biology. This opens the door to more precise medicines and faster, smarter clinical development, and I’m excited to help advance its most impactful applications.”

About Yasir Al-Wakeel

Dr. Al-Wakeel is a seasoned biotech executive with deep experience building and leading innovative life science companies at various stages of growth.

He most recently was an Entrepreneur in Residence at SR One, working with multiple startups, and served as President and CEO of a stealth genetic medicines company. Previous roles include finance and business development leadership positions at private and public companies, including Kronos Bio, where he led the company’s crossover financing and IPO and spearheaded a discovery deal with Genentech; Neon Therapeutics, where he played a key role in the company’s eventual sale to BioNTech; and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, where he helped shape and execute the company’s business strategy, culminating in a $1 billion asset sale to Ipsen.

Dr. Al-Wakeel joined the biotech industry through senior roles in investment banking, working both as an equity analyst and in corporate finance, where he was involved in more than $30 billion in strategic and financial transactions.

Dr. Al-Wakeel started his career as a practicing physician, holding both clinical and academic medical posts. He received his BM BCh from Oxford University and his MA in theology from Cambridge University.

About Vesalius Therapeutics

Founded in 2019 by Flagship Pioneering, Vesalius is taking a novel approach to create drugs to treat the common diseases that represent the vast majority of disease burden in industrialized societies. Vesalius’s Physio-Logic platform applies proprietary artificial intelligence and big data techniques to analyze clinical and genetic information from large groups of patients. The insights that emerge from this approach make it possible to identify groups of clinically similar people and novel proteins that can be targeted to treat them. It validates these insights in proprietary human-based model systems. Physio-Logic is making it possible to streamline drug discovery, accelerate clinical trials, and increase the probabilities of success of these trials for the diseases that matter most. For more information visit vesaliustx.com, or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health, sustainability and beyond. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, operating with $14 billion of assets under its direction as of its latest capital raise, announced in July 2024. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises over 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences, Moderna,  Sana Biotechnology, Tessera Therapeutics and Valo Health.