Flagship hires Yasir Al-Wakeel, Mary Beth Harler  

Flagship Pioneering announced that Yasir Al-Wakeel and Mary Beth Harler have joined the VC’s team. The firm named Al-Wakeel CEO-partner of Flagship and CEO of Vesalius Therapeutics Inc. Al-Wakeel, who was most recently entrepreneur in residence at SR One, succeeds John Mendlein, executive partner at Flagship Pioneering, who was interim CEO and will continue in his role as executive chairman. Vesalius is studying genetic circuits to identify subpopulations affected by diseases and find therapeutics that can better serve those subsets.

Harler becomes president of Pioneering Medicines, the VC’s in house drug development unit. Most recently, she was CEO of IGM Biosciences Inc. Before joining IGM, she spent more than 10 years at Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY), where her last role was SVP, head of immunology and fibrosis development...