He serves as a role model and mentor to me. At the same time, hundreds of billionaires fell from the ranks of Forbes Worlds Billionaires list, capturing a snapshot of the pandemics impact on the fortunes of the worlds wealthiest people. Afeyan added his praise to the organizations that were recognized for their work and especially the timing of the recognition at a time they are very much needed., I congratulate them and thank them for being here, he said. How does one describe someone who has helped found 38 companies? One year later, things couldnt be more different: a record 493 new billionaires joined the list this year, propelled by a red-hot stock market and unprecedented economic stimulus. If I had thought about it a lot, I am very sure I would not have started a company. What lies behind that phenomenon is what prompted me to write the book. Our sales over recent weeks and months were pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan put in place last December and executed in two installments following the passage of 60 days from the original filing, a spokesperson for Flagship told Forbes. What is good about immigrants is that they are the ultimate founders; they are the founders of a new life. Building a startup is always an iterative process. [8][9] He became a U.S. citizen in 2008. I interviewed Lebrecht by email. Noubar Afeyan (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for 100 LIVES) Noubar Afeyan was born to Armenian parents in Lebanon. Whats outside that is where people think it is reckless to work, he says. A man of many faces. The immigration experience includes hope, optimism, fear, uncertainly, struggle, leaving, adaptation, courage and above all, the feeling of being uprooted and being rootless, he said. He still owns a 6% stake in the company, part of an estimated $5.5 billion net worth that includes about $1.5 billion in Moderna options. It was another to make it a process, Afeyan says. The record shows immigrants and immigrant-led companies created the vaccines. All Rights Reserved. I look up to him even though he is half my size, he said, eliciting chuckles. After you read this book, it comes as no surprise that two Jews, Bourla and Zaks, are spearheading two COVID-19 vaccines to which many may one day soon owe their lives. Is that, in fact, the story of the two Jewish vaccines? The seeming courage it would take to do these things is rooted in being unrooted, he says. Outside that is where people think its reckless to workbut thats exactly where Flagship wants to be. Flagship has most recently created 2 subsidiaries; Flagship Biosciences, and Flagship Labs, both overseen by Paul . Afeyan is Armenian, emigrated from Lebanon to Canada and eventually did his doctorate at MIT. In 1999, Afeyan founded the predecessor company to Flagship Pioneering and set up shop in an office park in suburban Cambridge. With $17 billion and a model of "parallel entrepreneurship," he can fund a lot of wild. According to SEC filings, Afeyan owns at least 75% of Flagship, and the firm directly owns 4% of Flagship Ventures Fund IV but doesnt own any of Flagship Ventures Fund IV-Rx. Moderna shares closed at $23.61 on March 11, 2020; they hit a high of $185.98 on February 8, 2021 and closed at $169.50 on April 21, 2021, more than 600% higher than its pre-pandemic levels. After. Not every Moderna billionaire has been reducing their position, though: Founding investor Timothy Springer and cofounder Robert Langer, both professors at Harvard and MIT, respectively, also became billionaires thanks to their Moderna holdings but neither has sold a share since the company was founded in 2010. He sold about 1.7 million shares7% of his stakefor a combined $161.2 million (pretax) since March 2020, taking advantage of the stocks blistering rise since the onset of the pandemic. "This discovery redefines . He received the Golden Door Award in 2017 from the International Institute of New England in recognition of his contribution to the US as a foreign-born American. Other pharma executives have been selling shares as well, but not to the extent of those at Moderna. His company, Flagship Pioneering, is in the business of starting other companies using a methodological set of steps. In addition to his role at Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), the pioneering messenger RNA medicines company, he is also co-founder and Board Chairman of Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Generate Biomedicines, Tessera Therapeutics, Alltrna, Apriori Bio, and ProFound Therapeutics. Noubar invented the model, if you will, and essentially trained us in doing this.. Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health and . When anyone writes about how a specific religious and cultural tribe excels, there are cries of racism. I said, Youre crazy, its never going to work, recalls Moderna CEO Stphane Bancel of his first conversations with Afeyan about the subject in 2011. But there are great many other Jewish geniuses in his book, far less well-known. He and his wife Veronika invest in large-scale multifaceted projects in the sphere of global education, Sustainable . Afeyan noted that he was especially delighted to have Gregorian there. The answer matters because in gene therapy, treatments are delivered by viruses and those viruses have downsides. Hu Kun is the chairman of Shenzhen-listed Contec Medical Systems, which makes a range of medical equipment including pulse oximeters and pulmonary devices used to check lung conditions. My kids are descendants of an Armenian father and a Swedish mother. I think its not natural for him, its not comfortable.The man is doing many, many things simultaneously., Like many Armenians, Noubar Afeyans family moved from country to country, trying to find a safe haven. . Beyond his stake in Moderna, he also owns shares in more than a dozen publicly traded biotech companies in the U.S. Forbes 35th Annual Worlds Billionaires List: Facts And Figures 2021, Operation Wealth Speed: What A Record Number Of New, Self-Made Billionaires Says About Capitalism, These 11 Colleges Have Produced The Most Billionaire Alumni, The Covid Billionaire Who Wants To Put Undocumented Immigrants In Americas Finest Colleges, Kim Kardashian West Is Officially A Billionaire, The Worlds Richest Healthcare Billionaires In 2021, Meet The New Billionaire Behind Kazakhstans Surprisingly Hot Brokerage, The Top Richest Women In The World In 2021. Francine Lacqua speaks with Moderna co-founder Noubar Afeyan about his path to success, the promise of mRNA technology and the coronavirus vaccine. He's also the chairman and cofounder of biotech firm Moderna, known for its Covid-19 vaccine which was authorized by the U.S. FDA in December 2020. Dr. Avak Kahvejian (Leo Gozbekian photo), In her opening comments, Barbara Tellalian, a tireless fundraiser for the park and the wife of its designer, architect Donald Tellalian, said the park as well as the evening was dedicated to what connects us, celebrating the American immigrant experience., Next, Armenian Heritage Foundation President James Kalustian brought a congratulatory message from Gov. Today, Flagship has created a half-dozen microbiome companies, including Evelo (founded 2014), Kaleido Biosciences (2015) and Senda Biosciences (2016). I cover the world's richest people and how they made their billions. Moderna raised $1 billion and it engendered skepticism, putting it mildly. Dr. Noubar Afeyan's 32-year career as an inventor, entrepreneur and CEO has . James Kalustian, Founding President, Armenian Heritage Foundation; Board Chair, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy with Cindy Fitzgibbon, emcee (Leo Gozbekian photo), The program featured as emcee WCVBs Cindy Fitzgibbon. Thats a classically big idea for Afeyan, and Repertoire has now raised more than $350 million from investors that include SoftBank and the Alaska Permanent Fund to pursue it. With $17 billion and a model of parallel entrepreneurship, he can fund a lot of wild notions. He is best known for co-founding the biotechnology company Moderna, through his venture capital firm, Flagship Pioneering, and for co-founding humanitarian projects such as Aurora Prize and The Future Armenian.As of November 2021, his net worth is . Dunleavy is the founder of cloud-based healthcare data analytics outfit Inovalon, which is working with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to administer Covid-19 vaccines using its software platform. An investor today will believe the vaccine. But he still likes to keep a hand in everything. At the conclusion of the event, Afeyan said, I am happy that the occasion brought this many people out to support the Armenian Heritage Park.. Modernas fifth-largest individual shareholder, president Stephen Hoge, sold $65.5 million worth of Moderna stock since March 2020; Hoges 0.4% stake in Moderna is worth roughly $300 million, but he also owns about $545 million in options. While Modernas chairman may be behind the biggest sales, the pharmaceutical executive who personally sold the most shares is Moderna CEO Stphane Bancel. And some things startups are known for is their . [15][27] As a member of its board, he met with Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan in 2009[28] and 2012. He praised the park on three levels: It is a beautiful public space, a park rich in symbolism and a place that celebrates the immigrant experience. [37] In March and May 2020, Afeyan and Armenian president Armen Sarkissian discussed the COVID-19 pandemic. Many founders become serial entrepreneurs, starting companies and moving on, sometimes in rapid succession. Judaism was integral to Mahler. This past April, for example, Ohana Biosciences, a fertility company that focused on sperm-based treatments, shut its doors and laid off most of its staff a little over a year after emerging from stealth. And what if, he asked a decade ago, messenger RNA (mRNA) could be the basis of therapeutics? The vaccine or the platform? The 400 wealthiest Americans saw their collective fortune increase 40% over the last year, to $4.5 . Langer is a chemical engineer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he leads the eponymous Langer Lab; he owns a 3% stake in Moderna, which he helped start in 2010. Some bigger bets have gone sideways too. Flagship . Afeyan had partnered with Vardanyan to establish Initiatives for Development of Armenia (IDeA),[23] which according to the Armenian government, has between 2007 and 2017 implemented different projects with a total cost of $550 million. Stanley Erck, the CEO of Novavaxwhich is aiming to secure FDA emergency authorization of its Covid-19 vaccine in the second quarter of 2021sold about $9.3 million (pretax) of Novavax shares in late September and early November. The second time, the German officers who were carrying out the deportations realized his grandfather had blue eyes and spoke Germanand helped them to survive. Several political leaders were present at the program, including Middlesex County District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, Koutoujian, former Registry of Motor Vehicles head and Secretary of Labor Rachel Kaprielian and California State Assembly Member Adrin Nazarian. Gregorian is the former president of Brown University as well as the NewYork Public Library. To the rest of you, thanks for welcoming us.. A passionate advocate of the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, Noubar received the Golden Door Award in 2017 from the International Institute of New England, in honor of his outstanding contributions to American society as a U.S citizen of foreign birth. Noubar Afeyan. His wife, Brenda, who studied at Harvard's Divinity School, recently launched a second foundation called Champions of Love. After college at McGill University, where he studied chemical engineering, Afeyan completed a Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. The research became idea number FL46 within the firms labs, and launched as Ring Therapeutics in 2017. [32][15][2], a founding angel of Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST). Previously, he was a member of the founding team, director, and investor in highly successful ventures including Chemgenics Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Color Kinetics (acquired by Philips), Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), and Affinnova (acquired by AC Nielsen). Flagship filed 341 patent applications in 2020, more than double the number it had filed two years earlier; in the first half of this year, it cranked out 379 patent applications. To date, 70 companies have been formed from those 89 ideas. A chance meeting with Hewlett-Packard cofounder David Packard at a National Science Foundation event in Washington, D.C., in 1985 left its mark. Ideas that surviveas a total of 89 haveget numbers rather than names to keep founders from falling in love with a pet project that may need to be killed. NOUBAR AFEYAN, CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, MODERNA: Great to be here, Walter. 2000 - Present23 years. More than a few of those in the book, Lebrecht notes, fit this elusive category men and women who find the strength, in a time of crisis, to forge new paths in superhuman ways, with incredible genius for action and invention. He praised Afeyan and his family for giving back to the community. [5][7][3] He graduated from Loyola High School in Montreal in 1978. Noubar has to find the way increasingly to figure out how to run a bigger organization and keep his finger on the pulse, says David Epstein, who joined Flagship as an executive partner in 2017 after having been CEO of Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Founder and CEO, Flagship Pioneering. Jewish mothers push their children to aspire to greatness and to genius, he explains. Short films were shown about the park and the evenings honoree. As a result, Jews were literate when others were not. Others got rich making everything from personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests to antibody treatments and software that helps authorities schedule vaccination campaigns, which will be essential in reopening economies and returning to normal life. It is recounted brilliantly by Norman Lebrecht, a British journalist and novelist, and graduate of Bar-Ilan University, in his book. Years later, as the Communist regime took over Bulgaria, the Afeyans moved again, escaping to Greece before settling in Lebanon in the early-1950s. [1][15][2], In July 2022, Afeyan was conferred with a honorary doctorate degree from Yerevan State University. Flagship Pioneering Noubar. The dotcoms were infatuating the markets. What if, he asked his researchers, microorganisms living in our gutsthe microbiomecould help cure cancer? ), The park was opened on May 22, 2012 with a celebration that included then Gov. Rounding out the group of Moderna sellers is Juan Andres, the firms chief technical operations and quality officer, who sold shares worth $27.2 million. On Friday, November 13, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a deal with the giant US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to purchase millions of coronavirus vaccine doses. Editors note, April 22, 2021: This story was updated with comment from Flagship Pioneering. He became chief business officer of Applera, the successor company to Perkin-Elmers life sciences business, but was soon thinking about his next move. How I Built This: Moderna and Flagship Pioneering: Noubar Afeyan, Noubar Afeyan on the What's Your Problem? Noubar is a member of the Corporation of MIT (the Institute's governing body) and a member of the board of overseers for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is fascinating that a similar massive wave of emigration a million Russian Jews who emigrated to Israel fueled the growth of Israels hi-tech industry, from 1990 to 2000. 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