Flagship Pioneering Launches Etcelera by Merging Three Biotechnology Platforms

Flagship Pioneering has announced the launch of Etcelera, a new AI-powered drug discovery company that brings together the Cellarity, Etiome, and Empress Therapeutics platforms to examine cause-and-effect relationships in human biology. Ad Rawcliffe has been appointed as the company's CEO.

Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, Etcelera aims to develop treatments in the fields of hematology, metabolism, and immunology by focusing on causal intelligence in human biology. The company trains artificial intelligence models on large data sets showing how cells respond to genetic, chemical, and biological interventions. According to Flagship's announcement, the merged platform draws on over 20 years of data, including a foundational model trained on data derived from 150 million cells and more than 30 proprietary AI prediction models.

While Cellarity provides its human cell database and AI foundational model, Etiome contributes technology that maps how cellular disease processes evolve over time. Empress Therapeutics joins the process with its Perturb-seq platform, which utilizes high-throughput, single-cell genomics. Etcelera will focus on areas including hematology—such as myelofibrosis and essential thrombocythemia—metabolic diseases like MASH, and immunology, while also taking over Cellarity's existing collaboration with Novo.