About Us
Targeting Undruggable Cancer Targets with RNA Therapeutics
At Flamingo, we understand drug development – and more importantly – we understand RNA therapeutic drug development. We know that robust and novel backbone chemistry is paramount when developing any RNA therapeutic, especially for difficult to treat cancers, where many modalities have failed to succeed. Our company was built upon our deep experience and know-how in this space and we are well-positioned to advance candidates against targets considered “undruggable” by conventional chemistries.
Flamingo has the most advanced antisense RNA-targeting oncology portfolio with three clinical programs targeting undruggable transcription factors and splice variants. We also have a proprietary discovery engine, FLAME™ (Flamingo LncRNA Antisense Mining Engine), that addresses lncRNAs, a large and untapped class of disease-causing targets within the “dark matter” of the human genome. The Company was founded in 2020 based on pioneering work in the field of lncRNAs in oncology with our academic partners at VIB, KU Leuven, Ghent University and The University of Michigan. Flamingo has a strategic partnership with Ionis Pharmaceuticals and is supported by well-known biotechnology investors Kurma Partners and PMV. The company is headquartered in Belgium with additional operations in San Diego, CA
Leadership
Mike Garrett
Mike has more than 25 years’ experience in the biotech industry in positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to co-founding Flamingo, he was a Partner with TCG, a life science consulting group in RTP, North Carolina. Prior to this he was Vice President of Corporate Development at Scynexis, Inc. and a member of the team that executed the company’s IPO. Mike was Global Vice President, Ventures & Business Development for BTG plc, with responsibility for the company’s investment portfolio. Prior to this he worked in the corporate venture group of Aventis (Paris) and in their business development group. Earlier in his career he was a patent attorney in the Rhone-Poulenc Intellectual Property department, based in France and the UK.
Mike is a British and European Patent Attorney, holds an Honors degree in Chemistry from Southampton University, UK and an Executive Certificate in General Management from the Cedep INSEAD business school, France.
Rob MacLeod
Dr. MacLeod is Flamingo’s Chief Scientific Officer and has served as Vice President and Franchise Head of Oncology at Ionis Pharmaceuticals and contributed significantly to the discovery and development of clinical drug candidates in the several therapeutic areas including, oncology, thrombosis, inflammatory and musculoskeletal diseases during his thirteen year tenure. Prior to joining Ionis, Dr. MacLeod was Senior Director of Discovery Biology at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and was a founding scientist of MethylGene Inc. (now Mirati Therapeutics). He has led the strategic and scientific efforts of several multidisciplinary drug discovery teams leading to the discovery and clinical development of 15 novel investigational therapeutics (to date) and over 100 high impact scientific publications and patents. Dr. MacLeod obtained his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from Concordia University in Montreal Canada, and his doctoral degree in Cancer Epigenetics from McGill University.
Michel Janicot
Floor Stam
Ms. Stam is our co-Founder and has served as our Chief Operating Officer since the inception of Flamingo. Floor received her undergraduate training at Leiden University in Biomedical Sciences and a PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in Neurobiology. She then continued her research at the the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, where she worked on the genetic dissection of the neuronal networks underlying vertebrate locomotion as a Research Associate. After completion of her training, she relocated to Belgium and was recruited by the VIB to join their team of technology transfer experts. From 2013 to 2019 she was responsible for industrial contracts, inter-university contracts and spin-off creation on behalf of principal investigators in the fields of neurobiology, structural biology and oncology, with the aim to secure funding for translational research and move novel academic inventions to industry.
and Co-founder
Board of Directors
Christopher K. Mirabelli, Ph.D.
Dr. Mirabelli has spent over 35 years in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as a research scientist, senior executive and venture capital investor. He is currently the chairman of the board of directors of Leap Therapeutics, Inc., an oncology-focused drug development company. Dr. Mirabelli was the chief executive officer of Leap Therapeutics from its founding in 2015 until 2020. He is a member of the board of directors of two additional biotechnology companies: Dynacure, a clinical stage company developing drugs to treat rare and orphan diseases and Aro BioTherapeutics, developing a protein-based drug targeting platform to achieve high degrees of efficacy and safety for patients with cancer and other serious diseases. He is a managing director of HealthCare Ventures since 2000, a venture capital firm located in Cambridge, MA. Prior to joining HealthCare Ventures, he was the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors of LeukoSite, Inc., from its start in 1993 until its acquisition by Millennium Pharmaceuticals in 1999. Dr. Mirabelli was a co-founder of Isis (now Ionis) Pharmaceuticals, where he held several positions, including senior vice president of research, from 1989-1993. He started his career at SmithKline & French Laboratories R&D division in 1981. He has authored 192 scientific publications, abstracts and review articles and is an author of 24 issued patents.
He received his Ph.D. degree in molecular pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine (1981) and B.S. degree in biology from SUNY-Fredonia (1977).
Remi Droller
Rémi Droller is currently managing partner of Kurma Partners SA and member of the board of directors of Dyncaure SAS, ImCheck Therapeutics SAS, Orphazyme A/S, OxThera AB, AM Pharma BV, Flamingo Therapeutics BV and Pharvaris BV. He started at CDC Innovation from 2000 to 2003, later joining AGF Private Equity (now Idinvest Partners) where he developed the investment activity in the life sciences and made investments such as Novagali Pharma (listed on Euronext and acquired by Santen) Prosensa Therapeutics (listed on Nasdaq and acquired by Biomarin) Vivacta (acquired by Novartis), IntegraGen (listed on Alternext) Onxeo (listed on Euronext). Rémi Droller holds a master’s degree in molecular biology from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris and a Master’s degree in finance and management of innovation from AgroParisTech.
Griet Vanpoucke
She played a leading role in the company’s transformation from a proteomics discovery company to a diagnostic product company until the company was acquired in 2014. She holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Ghent University (Belgium) and did a postdoc at the MRC in Edinburgh, UK.
Roderick Verhelst
Roderick Verhelst is a principal at ParticipatieMaatschappij Vlaanderen (PMV), with investment interests related to early-stage therapeutics. He obtained a PhD in Bioengineering at KU Leuven (BE) and an MBA at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management (BE).
Roderick has a successful track record in life science investing and has been instrumental in the formation, financing and/or exit of several start-ups, including GST (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), Bluebee (acquired by Illumina), Dualyx and Flamingo Therapeutics.
Prior to joining PMV, Roderick worked as an investment banker (equity research) at Degroof Petercam, where he was responsible for the life science franchise and was involved in the IPOs of Argenx, Biocartis, Curetis, and Probiodrug (now Vivoryon), among others.
At this moment, Roderick is a member of the Board of Directors of Dualyx, Flamingo Therapeutics, and Aelin Therapeutics.
Frank Bennett
Dr. Bennett is a co-recipient of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his contributions to the discovery and development of SPINRAZA® (nusinersen) and the 2018 Hereditary Disease Foundation’s (HDF) Leslie Gehry Brenner Prize for Innovation in Science for his leadership and continued commitment to developing antisense therapies for Huntington’s disease (HD).
Dr. Bennett has published more than 230 papers in the field of antisense research and development, and he is an inventor on more than 175 issued patents.
Prior to joining Ionis, Dr. Bennett was associate senior investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories (currently, GlaxoSmithKline). He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and his B.S. degree in Pharmacy from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He performed his postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories.
Dr. Bennett serves on the Advisory Board for the Hereditary Disease Foundation.
Scientific Advisors
Jean Christophe Marine, Ph.D.
Jean-Christophe Marine obtained his PhD from the University of Liège, (Belgium, 1996), and was a Howard Hugues Medical Institute Fellow at the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, USA, 1996-99). He was a Marie Curie Fellow at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO, Milan, Italy, 2000-2003).
He became a junior VIB Group leader in 2004 at the University of Ghent (Belgium) and moved his laboratory to the University of Leuven (KULeuven) in 2010 where he is now Professor, senior VIB group leader and Director of the VIB center for Cancer Biology. He received several national and international prizes, including the EMBO Young Investigator award in 2006, for his work on p53 modifiers. His interests focus on the mechanisms by which cancer-specific non-mutational (i.e. epigenetic and (post-)transcriptional) events modulate tumor initiation, progression and therapy outcome. Our laboratory has recently developed a growing interest in several aspects of melanoma biology, and in particular, in the identification of melanoma initiating cells and the mechanisms that contribute to early tumor development, emergence of inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity and therapy resistance.
Pieter Mestdagh, Ph.D.
Pieter Mestdagh is focused on studying the role of non-coding RNAs in cancer by combining wet lab and dry lab activities. He is co-founder of various international consortia related to the study of ncRNAs including the miRNA Quality Control consortium (miRQC), the extracellular vesicles Quality Control study (evQC), the extracellular RNA Quality Control study (exRNAQC) and the RNA-Atlas consortium. His work contributed to novel insights on the role of miRNAs and lncRNAs in various cancer types such as neuroblastoma and melanoma. Currently, his lab is evaluating the application of cancer-type specific (non-coding)RNAs as biomarkers in circulation and novel targets for therapy.
Dr. Mestdagh authored more than 100 articles in international peer reviewed journals and is an inventor on 6 patents. His work has been awarded with various national prizes and he was nominated among the top 5 young investigators in Belgium and the Netherlands by The New Scientist. Pieter Mestdagh currently holds positions as an assistant professor at Ghent University and group leader at the Cancer Research Institute Ghent.
Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Chinnaiyan is a molecular pathologist and physician scientist at the leading edge of translational cancer research and precision oncology. He is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, American Cancer Society Research Professor, and Director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology. He has received number of honors including the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, and was inducted into the AACR Academy Class of 2020. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Inventors, National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Chinnaiyan is best known for the discovery of TMPRSS2-ETS gene fusions in a majority of prostate cancers, the first causative gene fusion in a common solid tumor. This landmark discovery from was made using a bioinformatics approach to detect outlier genes in an aggregated tumor gene expression database called ONCOMINE, developed by his group. In 2011, he established the first integrative, comprehensive clinical sequencing approach for advanced cancer patients called MI-ONCOSEQ, which has served as a paradigm for cancer precision medicine. He has also been taking advantage of integrative sequencing efforts to understand the non-coding genome of cancer especially in the area of biomarker and therapeutic development.
Hagop Youssoufian, M.D.
Dr. Youssoufian has more than 25 years of experience in drug development. Following a successful academic career as a clinician, teacher and NIH-funded investigator, he held various roles, including Chief Medical Officer and President of R&D, in clinical and translational science at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanofi Aventis, ImClone, Ziopharm Oncology, Progenics and BIND Therapeutics. Dr. Youssoufian is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He received a B.S. in biology from Boston College and M.Sc./M.D. from University of Massachusetts Medical School, followed by fellowships at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and MIT.
Partners and Investors
Flamingo was founded in 2020 based on pioneering work in the field of lncRNAs in oncology with our academic partners at VIB-KU Leuven, University of Michigan, and University of Ghent. We have a strategic partnership with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, the leader in RNA-targeted therapy, and we are proud to be supported by well-known biotechnology investors.
