Lovisa Afzelius, PhD, MBA
Origination Partner
Flagship Pioneering
Lovisa Afzelius is an origination partner at Flagship Pioneering. A computational scientist by training, she brings to Flagship two decades of leadership experience in emerging biotechs and large pharma companies, and a passion for data-driven drug discovery. Dr Afzelius has served as CEO, co-founder, president, board chairman and executive director in emerging biotech and large pharma companies. She joined Flagship in early 2020, leading innovation as co-founder and founding CEO of Alltrna, Apriori Bio, Metaphore Biotechnologies and Prologue Medicines.
Before joining the Flagship ecosystem, Dr Afzelius built and led Pfizer’s systems immunology function and served as executive director of clinical programs. In 2017, she co-founded Elsa.science, a digital health company for which she serves on the board.
Dr Afzelius began her career at AstraZeneca and has received numerous accolades for her work, including being named one of the 100 “most influential persons under 40 in Sweden” by the business magazine, Affärsvärlden. In 2022, Dr Afzelius, was named one of the 20 women blazing trails in biopharma Endpoints for her work with companies using AI and machine learning to advance drug development. In 2023, Apriori Bio was named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and received an honorable mention for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas list in the Rapid Response category. Apriori’s co-founder and CEO, including at Apriori.
She holds a PhD in computational chemistry from Uppsala University, a Master of Science in
integrative pharmacology from Gothenburg University as well as an MBA from MIT.