How Flexion Pivoted To Become A Commercial Biotech

By Ed Miseta, Chief Editor, Clinical Leader

Michael Clayman, M.D., and Neil Bodick, M.D., Ph.D., founded Flexion Therapeutics more than 12 years ago. Prior to that, they spent a combined 35 years at Eli Lilly and Company. Their last five years at Lilly were spent working in Chorus, a full-service and autonomous R&D unit within Lilly Research Labs. Prior to becoming CEO at Flexion, Clayman served as VP of Lilly Research Labs while Bodick was chief medical officer for Chorus.

"At almost every large pharma company, discovery output outstrips development capacity,” says Clayman. “Our job at Chorus was to efficiently and effectively move promising assets to meaningful clinical proof of concept and to do so faster and at a fraction of the cost of programs in the mothership.”