Flagship Pioneering Unveils Kintai Therapeutics and Appoints Pharmaceutical Drug Developer Paul-Peter Tak, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Executive Officer

A unique life science innovation enterprise, today unveiled Kintai Therapeutics and named Paul-Peter Tak, M.D., Ph.D., as president, chief executive officer, and member of the board of directors. Kintai is focused on leveraging the body's diverse signaling networks to pioneer a new class of Precision Enteric Medicine™ therapeutics that restore health and fight disease. "The gut—which is home to trillions of bacteria, 70 percent of our immune cells, and 500 million neurons—is truly a command center, transmitting constant messages and signals throughout the body that affect our propensity for disease," said David Berry, M.D., Ph.D., general partner at Flagship Pioneering and co-founder of Kintai Therapeutics. "Kintai is uniquely interpreting and leveraging the interconnectivity of gastrointestinal biology, the microbiota, immune cells, and neurons to enable precision control with proprietary small molecules. I am thrilled that we've been able to attract Paul-Peter to lead the organization with his deep experience in, and outstanding track record of, fostering scientific creativity and applying rigorous discipline in transforming scientific advances into successful, innovative therapies for patients." Kintai was founded in 2016 by Flagship Labs, the innovation foundry of Flagship Pioneering. Flagship's team of entrepreneurial scientists asked: What if the gut offered a more impactful means to drive physiology based on the confluence of the enteric nervous system, immune system, and microbiome? The team began investigating the ways in which the gut adversely transforms drugs, and how the same biologies, as well as the nuanced interconnections of a wide variety of systems, could be harnessed as a new way to develop drugs. These early explorations led to fruitful insights and data that inspired a foundational view that the gut could serve as a way to effectively drive systemic therapeutic effects.