Flagship Pioneering forms Etcelera by merging Cellarity, Etiome and Empress Therapeutics platforms (AI causal-biology drug discovery)

Flagship Pioneering announced on 29 October 2026 the formation of Etcelera, created by merging the platforms of Cellarity, Etiome and Empress Therapeutics with Flagship's in-house AI. Ad Rawcliffe leads it. The platform combines human transcriptomic data, chemoproteomics and perturbation data, including a foundation model trained on 150 million cells and 30+ AI prediction models, with programs in hematology, metabolism (MASH) and immunology. Cellarity's sickle cell program CLY-124 moves to a standalone company. AI-for-science/biotech news; no phage angle found (Empress works on small molecules from commensal-bacteria metabolites).