Flagship recruits ex-Magenta CEO to lead Ampersand; Biogen’s head of research leaves for Alltrna

Last Mon­day, Ja­son Gard­ner be­came the lat­est biotech vet­er­an to join the sprawl­ing biotech in­cu­ba­tor Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing as a CEO-part­ner and as chief ex­ec­u­tive of Am­per­sand Bio­med­i­cines, one of the firm’s star­tups that emerged from stealth ear­li­er this spring.

Gard­ner hopped over to Flag­ship af­ter about half a dozen years lead­ing Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics, a biotech he found­ed. The jour­ney end­ed some­what abrupt­ly in the win­ter af­ter a pa­tient death in one of its clin­i­cal tri­als led to a quick in­ter­nal re­think and a sub­se­quent search for strate­gic al­ter­na­tives, which cul­mi­nat­ed in the biotech hand­ing its Nas­daq spot to a pri­vate start­up.

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