Flagship Pioneering and the Francis Crick Institute Announce Collaboration to Advance Life Sciences Innovation

LONDON, Nov. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering and the Francis Crick Institute today announced they have entered into a collaboration to advance life sciences innovation and accelerate the translation of cutting-edge research into real-world impact across the UK. Through this collaboration, Flagship Pioneering and the Francis Crick Institute will work together to jointly explore areas of scientific opportunity, leveraging both the Crick's depth of scientific insight and research excellence with Flagship's proven model for creating and scaling platform-based biotechnology companies. Together, they aim to catalyse the development of transformative scientific platforms and therapeutic pipelines capable of delivering meaningful breakthroughs for human health.

Flagship, a Cambridge, Massachusetts–headquartered company, has made the UK one of its first major hubs outside the US, deepening connections between its portfolio of pioneering biotech companies and the UK's world-class life sciences ecosystem. Scientists from the Crick and Flagship will begin working together with the vision of developing shared initial projects, aiming to strengthen the UK's life sciences sector and drive further health innovation for current and new biotech companies.

Stephen Mayhew, Chief Business Officer at the Francis Crick Institute, said: "We are very excited to partner with Flagship Pioneering to deliver on our shared mission to pursue world-class discovery research and translation to benefit human health."

Junaid Bajwa, Senior Partner and Head of the UK for Flagship Pioneering, said:
"This collaboration represents an important milestone in Flagship's commitment to the UK's vibrant scientific community, and we are delighted to unite the Crick's deep biological insight with Flagship's model of multi-product platform innovation. The UK is home to exceptional scientific talent and institutions, and the Crick stands at the forefront of that excellence."

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 more than 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences, Moderna, Sana Biotechnology, Tessera Therapeutics and Valo Health.

About the Francis Crick Institute:

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute with the mission of understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work helps improve our understanding of why disease develops which promotes discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King's College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe.

Media Contacts:

Flagship:
press@flagshippioneering.com 

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