#USA #Cambridge #Metaphore Biotechnologies #Anabella Villalobos #MIMIC platform

Metaphore Biotechnologies Expands Leadership Team

On September 9, 2025, Metaphore Biotechnologies announced the appointment of Anabella Villalobos, Ph.D., as its new Chief Scientific Officer. This pivotal move is part of the company's strategy to enhance its executive leadership while harnessing cutting-edge advancements in drug design. Metaphore, founded by Flagship Pioneering, specializes in generative AI technologies aimed at revolutionizing pharmaceutical creation, particularly focusing on developing a novel class of functional antibodies.

Anabella Villalobos brings a wealth of experience to Metaphore, marked by her track record of delivering over 30 clinical candidates across diverse therapeutic domains, including neuroscience and autoimmune disorders. CEO Angela Hwang expressed enthusiasm about Villalobos joining the team, emphasizing her exceptional capability in guiding scientific endeavors and fostering strategic collaborations in academia and industry.

A veteran in the pharmaceutical industry with more than three decades of expertise, Villalobos previously held the position of Senior Vice President at Biogen. During her tenure, she played a pivotal role in developing differentiated drug candidates targeting neurological, rare, and autoimmune conditions utilizing various modalities such as small molecules and gene therapy. Her extensive career also includes 28 impressive years at Pfizer, where she held escalating roles and notably contributed to notable drug discoveries, including the first-in-class Ogsiveo® (nirogacestat).

"I am thrilled to join Metaphore at such a dynamic phase for the company," Villalobos stated. She expressed her commitment to translating scientific innovations into transformative therapies. Villalobos recognizes the unique potential of Metaphore's MIMIC™ platform, which is acclaimed as the world's first structure-independent sequence-to-function framework for protein design. This technology promises to confront and address complex disease biology in groundbreaking ways, overcoming challenges that traditional methods can't.

Metaphore Biotechnologies' ambition is to pioneer the function-first approach in AI drug design, unlocking previously unattainable drug targets and contributing to meaningful breakthroughs for patient care. The company's approach positions it favorably within an industry that increasingly demands innovative solutions that not only show efficacy but also improve patient outcomes substantially.

Under Villalobos' leadership, the future of the MIMIC™ platform and the broader pipeline of therapeutics appears bright and full of potential. She is determined to lead the team toward delivering bold and differentiated therapies that respond to significant medical needs.

In summary, the addition of Anabella Villalobos as Chief Scientific Officer at Metaphore Biotechnologies is not just a notable personnel change; it represents a strategic effort to bolster its scientific leadership and drive the next phase of innovation in drug discovery. As the industry moves towards increasingly complex biological challenges, Metaphore's commitment to strong leadership and pioneering technology may set a new standard in the pharmaceutical landscape.

For more information on Metaphore Biotechnologies and their innovative work, please visit their website.