Avak Kahvejian

Founding CEO, Cellarity; Partner, Flagship Pioneering

Avak Kahvejian, Ph.D. is a life sciences inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO. Since 2011, he has been a partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he leads a team to invent and launch new therapeutic platforms. His work has led to the creation of multiple high-value public and private companies including Cygnal Therapeutics (pioneering new drugs that target neuronal pathways for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune/inflammation disorders); Codiak BioSciences (developing engineered exosome therapeutics as cancer treatments); Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY, developing Red Cell Therapeutics, engineered red blood cells capable of providing potent and prolonged therapy for rare diseases, cancer and autoimmunity); and Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB the first microbiome therapy platform.)

At Cygnal, Avak served as founding President and CEO from 2017 until the end of 2018 and currently serves as a member of the board of directors. At Rubius, Avak served as founding President and CEO from 2013 to 2017, and then as Chief Innovation Officer until the end of 2018. There he established the Rubius Erythrocyte Design (RED)™ platform and conceived and developed dozens of Red Cell Therapeutics (RCTs)™ spanning a range of therapeutic modalities including enzyme therapies, immuno-oncology and oncology therapies, and tolerogenic drugs.

Avak earned his Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Biochemistry from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.