Massachusetts has long been the global center of life sciences innovation. After a few years of headwinds and uncertainty, we’re seeing signs that our flywheel of investment may be beginning to spin again. The latest generation of companies emerging here is redefining not just what we innovate but how.
Over the past several weeks, three new biotech companies, Zag Bio, Expedition Medicines, and Cirrus Therapeutics, have launched from within our ecosystem. Each is advancing science in a different direction: retraining the immune system, applying generative AI to chemistry, and using gene therapy to restore sight. Together, they show how Massachusetts remains the world’s most reliable engine for translating discovery into patient impact. And they’re doing it through the kind of collaboration that could only happen here.
All three share a common foundation in the infrastructure that powers our community: the incubators, venture creation studios, and research institutions that turn ideas into enterprises. Zag emerged from LabCentral and Mission BioCapital, Expedition from Flagship Pioneering, and Cirrus is housed at The Engine.
Consider the range of science behind these companies, a hallmark of a mature ecosystem. In Cambridge, Zag Bio is developing thymus-targeted medicines to retrain the immune system, drawing on research from Harvard Medical School and the collaborative environment at LabCentral. Its CEO, Jason Cole, also serves on MassBio’s Board of Directors, reinforcing how interconnected we are here in Massachusetts.
A few blocks away, Expedition Medicines, born within Flagship, is using generative AI to design new classes of small-molecule drugs. Under the leadership of Molly Gibson, a veteran of several Flagship successes, Expedition represents the growing fusion of computation and biology that defines the next era of drug discovery. It’s an approach born from deep local expertise in a region where digital innovation and wet-lab science exist side by side.
And at The Engine, Cirrus Therapeutics is advancing AAV-based gene therapies to combat blinding eye diseases like dry age-related macular degeneration. CEO Ying Kai Chan, an alum of George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School, co-founded the company in 2023 with Andrew Dick. Chan is a 2024 Termeer Fellow, a recognition by the Termeer Institute of exceptional promise in science and entrepreneurship. His story is a prime example of how Massachusetts provides the education, mentorship, and community that sustain innovation.
Each of these stories builds on the shared strengths of deep academic science, committed investors, and a culture that values cooperation over competition.
While these launches should absolutely be celebrated, we must remember that not every company begins with the same level of access or resources. Many early-stage founders take a more traditional path—raising modest pre-seed or seed rounds without the benefit of an incubator affiliation, years in stealth, or large strategic backers. We have a responsibility to make sure that all pathways to success remain open and equitable to entrepreneurs. Ensuring that innovation thrives across the full spectrum, from flagship ventures to first-time founders, is essential. That’s how we’ll keep Massachusetts’s life sciences leadership strong for decades to come.
At MassBio, we’re responding to that challenge by deepening partnerships and expanding opportunities across the innovation pipeline. Through programs like Drive, the Palmetto Beacon Venture Fellowship, and the CEO & Founder Link, we’re creating connections, mentorship, and capital pathways that help level the playing field for emerging entrepreneurs. These initiatives, each with collaboration at its foundation, ensure that whether a company launches from a world-class incubator or a university lab, it has a network of people and organizations behind it ready to help it grow.
The world still looks to Massachusetts for new science and for a model of how science becomes impact. To the founders, researchers, and investors shaping what comes next—thank you for choosing to build here, and for showing the world what’s possible when discovery meets purpose.