Pioneering Partnerships: Paul Biondi in conversation with Uli Stilz

Paul Biondi

Executive Partner, Flagship Pioneering & President, Pioneering Medicines

Paul joined Flagship Pioneering in 2019 as Executive Partner, Flagship Pioneering and President, Pioneering Medicines. In his role at Flagship, Paul works with growth company CEOs and their teams to achieve the best attainable value for each company and serves on the boards of selected Flagship companies including Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB) and Valo Health. As a member of Flagship’s senior leadership team, Paul is involved in strategic and operational aspects of Flagship, including leading Pioneering Medicines.

Pioneering Medicines is an initiative of Flagship dedicated to conceiving and developing an innovative pipeline of life-changing treatments for patients. By harnessing the power of Flagship’s scientific platforms, Pioneering Medicines will create novel medicines that deliver benefits to more patients, sooner. Pioneering Medicines also enters into strategic partnerships to jointly conceive new products by combining partners' R&D priorities with Flagship's unique platform capabilities, providing partners access to the full spectrum of innovation across Flagship as well as the R&D expertise that Pioneering Medicines offers.

Paul joined Flagship Pioneering following a seventeen-year tenure at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). Most recently, Paul served as the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development where he had enterprise-wide responsibility for establishing and evolving BMS’s strategy, and for pursuing strategic transactions to access external innovation, enhance BMS’s capabilities and strengthen the company’s portfolio. Prior to this role, Paul held a series of leadership roles within BMS’ R&D organization overseeing strategy, portfolio and project management, and clinical and business operations.

Prior to BMS, Paul spent nine years at Mercer Management Consulting. He received his M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Uli Stilz

Vice President, Novo Nordisk

Uli Stilz is Vice President of the Novo Nordisk Bio Innovation Hub Transformative Research Unit (TRU) in Boston. In this role he is leading a cross functional R&D team establishing innovative partnerships with biotech, venture capital, and academia to co-create novel therapies and technologies to improve the life of patients with cardiometabolic and rare diseases.

Uli Stilz graduated with a Master degree in Organic Chemistry from ETH Zürich. He then moved to the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, where he received his Ph.D. in 1990.

After postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology he joined Hoechst AG were he held various positions before he was appointed Associate Vice President of the newly established Innovation unit within the Diabetes Division at Sanofi in 2010. Over a period of 20 years he contributed to more than 60 preclinical and clinical drug candidates across cardiometabolic, immunology, and oncology therapy areas.

In 2014 he joined Novo Nordisk A/S in Copenhagen, relocated to Boston in 2019, and assumed his current role as Vice President of the Novo Nordisk Bio Innovation Hub TRU in 2021.

Uli Stilz was appointed adjunct professor at the University of Frankfurt in 2012. He serves on various Editorial Boards for international peer-reviewed journals, is member of Scientific Advisory Boards in North America and Europe, and has represented Novo Nordisk A/S at trade organisations (EFPIA). Between 2012 and 2014 he was President of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry.