Geoffrey von Maltzahn is an inventor, entrepreneur, CEO, and the co-founder of multiple groundbreaking companies in therapeutics and agriculture.
Geoffrey is a general partner at Flagship Pioneering and has co-founded companies that represent, in aggregate, over $9 billion in public and private market capitalization. Through his role in Flagship Labs, Geoffrey has created companies that include Generate:Biomedicines, Tessera Therapeutics, Indigo Agriculture, Sana Biotechnology, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA). These are pioneering, respectively, generative biology, gene writing, plant microbiome products for crop improvement, engineered cells and cell-specific gene therapies, novel chemistries to drive the human microbiome, the first microbiome therapeutics, and amino acid-based drugs.
Geoffrey currently serves as chief executive officer and director of Generate:Biomedicines and Tessera Therapeutics, chief innovation officer and director of Indigo, and director of Kaleido Biosciences and Sana Biotechnology. He recently served as chief executive officer of Cobalt Biomedicine, which he led from inception to merger with Sana Biotechnology, and as Kaleido’s chief executive officer, where he led the company from inception to the launch of multiple clinical studies. Geoffrey also served as chief executive officer of Indigo, where he led the development of the company’s plant microbiome platform and the discovery of the company’s first commercial products. Previously, Geoffrey was the chief technology officer of Seres Therapeutics, where he led the discovery of SER-109 and built out the company’s discovery platform.
Geoffrey has deep expertise in bioengineering and nanotechnology. He is listed as an inventor on over 200 patent applications and patents, and he has co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed articles. Geoffrey has received a number of awards and honors, including Bloomberg 50’s Ones to Watch; Business Insider’s 30 Biotech Leaders Under 40; Endpoints 20 Biopharma Leaders Under 40; Boston Chamber of Commerce Ten Outstanding Young Leaders; the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to the most innovative students at MIT; the National Inventors Hall of Fame Graduate Student Prize; the Biomedical Engineering Society Graduate Research Award; and the Harvard-MIT Martha Gray Prize. Geoffrey and his inventions have been profiled by Forbes, The Economist, CNN, Bloomberg Businessweek, Scientific American, Popular Science, MIT Technology Review, and other media.
Geoffrey was awarded a PhD in biomedical engineering and medical physics from MIT under the mentorship of Sangeeta N. Bhatia, MD, PhD; an MS in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego; and an SB in chemical engineering from MIT.