Flagship prepares for scale

With its newly closed $824 million Special Opportunities Fund II, Flagship Pioneering has deepened its pool of capital to invest in its portfolio companies as they seek to scale up with multiproduct platforms.

Upon the fund's closing March 20, Flagship's Noubar Afeyan said the firm hopes to back 15-20 of its growth-phase portfolio companies that have built broad platforms and generated 10-20 drug programs. He said many of these diversified platform companies help mitigate Flagship's risk, but also require additional capital to develop the products...