Sabrina Yang
Chief Innovation Officer at Empress Therapeutics
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Overview
Work Experience
Senior Principal
2017 - Current
Leading Flagship-founded bio platform companies from seed through Series B. Co-founded Empress Therapeutics and FL91 (now Ampersand Biomedicines) Leading entrepreneurial scientists in developing category-defining life sciences NewCo’s by exploring hundreds of venture ideas, conducting KOL calls, presenting company creation and investment plan to investment committee. Responsible for NewCo R&D strategy, business development, IP strategy, team formation, company milestones, platform proof points, developing budget, and interfacing with board members, scientific advisors, and consultants.
Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Chief Innovation Officer
2022
Leading platform innovation, corporate partnership, and external research collaboration
Co-Founder
2018
Empress Therapeutics is to generate transformative drug candidates that get to the clinic faster and cheaper.
Raised $50,000,000.00 from Flagship Pioneering.
Co-Founder
2021 - 2023
FL91 is a Flagship founded platform company with the mission to make biologic drugs safer, based on a novel category of proteins that activate homeostasis-promoting pathways only at the disease site.
Translational Fellow
2016 - 2017
NSF Innovation Corps Translational Fellow: from research idea to commercialization. - Developed a small molecule T-cell targeting drug delivery platform for cancer immunotherapy - Project leader in the Biomed Entrepreneurship Course at the Broad Institute - Podium speaker at 2017 Immunotherapy of Cancer Conference (ITOC4) in Prague, Czech Republic - Selected participant in Harvard Healthcare Innovation and Commercialization semester-long course: start-ups, intellectual properties, venture capital, market analysis, investments, and pitch to VCs.
Venture Creation Fellow
2017 - 2017
Originate first-in-category platform technology ideas through effective analytical, communication and teamwork skills. Pitch company idea and plans to Flagship partners and CEO.
Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Doctoral Researcher
2011 - 2016
Laboratory of Dr. Darrell Irvine (HHMI investigator) at the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research - Developed a strategy to enhance intracellular small molecule drug targeting to CD8+ T cells in vivo. Filed two patents. - Collaborated with computational scientists to understand the mechanisms of cell membrane penetration and fusion dynamics. - Podium Speaker at 2016 Keystone Symposium: Antibodies as Drugs and Cancer Vaccines, Whistler, Canada. - Poster presentation at 2015 Gordon Research Conference: Cancer Nanotechnology, Vermont. - Podium Speaker at 2014 BMES, San Antonio, Texas. - Silver Awards in MIT Materials Prototyping Contest (2013): Designed and built a solar-powered LED embedded in flexible material that lights up off-grid places.
Visiting Scholar
2014 - 2014
Researcher
2009 - 2009
Iron platinum nano alloy synthesis, characterization and applications in MRI/CT molecular contrast agents.