Co-creating Breakthroughs in R&D: Paul Biondi (Flagship) & Uli Stilz (Novo Nordisk)
Synopsis:
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When biotech meets bold partnerships, new models of innovation emerge.
In this episode of the Biotech 2050 Podcast, host Rahul Chaturvedi welcomes Paul Biondi, Managing Partner at Flagship Pioneering, and Uli Stilz, Vice President, R&ED External Innovation Partners at Novo Nordisk, to explore the power of co-creation.
Together, they unpack how Flagship’s pioneering medicines model and Novo’s Bio Innovation Hub intersect to accelerate breakthroughs in obesity, diabetes, and cardiometabolic diseases. They share lessons on building trust, navigating crises, and structuring alliances that go beyond transactions into enduring innovation ecosystems.
From human disease atlases to new frameworks for agile collaboration, this episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how pharma and biotech can partner differently—turning complexity into transformative therapies.
Biography:
Paul Biondi is a Managing Partner at Flagship Pioneering, leading Flagship’s product and partnering capabilities, including Pioneering Medicines, Partnering, and Pipeline and Product Innovation.
In this role, Paul oversees Pioneering Medicines, Flagship's in-house drug discovery and development unit, as well as therapeutic partnering and business development efforts for the Flagship ecosystem, including driving broad institution-wide Innovation Supply Chain partnerships with biopharma companies to jointly conceive and create innovative products.
Paul also works with Flagship company CEOs and their teams to achieve the best attainable value for each company, guiding them in their pipeline strategy, product concepts, R&D execution, and partnering approach. He serves on the boards of Flagship-founded companies, including Tessera Technologies (NASDAQ: TSRA) and Valo Health.
Paul joined Flagship following a seventeen-year tenure at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). He 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. Paul previously spent nine years at Mercer Management Consulting.
Paul received his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his B.A. from Dartmouth College.
Uli Stilz is Corporate Vice President, R&ED External Innovation Partners, External & Exploratory Innovation (E2I) at Novo Nordisk. In this global leadership role anchored in Boston, he leads a cross-functional R&D team developing creative partnership models with biotech, venture capital, academia, and research hospitals to co-create next-generation therapeutics to provide life changing treatments for patients around the world. Based on the foundational success of the former Bio Innovation Hub, Uli and the E2I team drive an externally-anchored portfolio of novel partnerships within key therapy areas including cardiometabolic and rare diseases, stimulating global innovation ecosystems to advance Novo Nordisk’s global pipeline.
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. Between 2012 and 2014 he was President of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry.
In 2014, Uli joined Novo Nordisk A/S in Copenhagen and in 2019 relocated to Boston to create and lead the Novo Nordisk Bio Innovation Hub.
Uli Stilz was appointed adjunct professor at the University of Frankfurt in 2012 and serves on Editorial Boards for international peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of several Scientific Advisory Boards in North America and Europe, and has represented Novo Nordisk A/S at trade organizations (EFPIA). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors at the Kendall Square Association and Gensaic, and is a Venture Advisor for aMoon Fund.