Haiyan Xu

Haiyan Xu joined Flagship Pioneering in 2025 as Senior Director and Head of In Vitro Pharmacology for Pioneering Medicines. In this role, she leads a team of scientists dedicated to developing and executing in vitro assays that support a diverse array of therapeutic programs. These initiatives are conducted in close collaboration with Flagship’s platform companies and external strategic partners, all aimed at advancing novel therapeutics toward clinical development.

Haiyan brings over 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development, having held positions at Merck & Co., AbbVie, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. During her decade-long tenure at Merck, she led a team responsible for high-throughput cell-based assays and translational models, contributing to approximately 30 programs across multiple therapeutic areas, including immunology, oncology, and cardiometabolic diseases, at various preclinical and clinical stages.

Between her roles at Merck and AbbVie, she served as an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. There, she directed a laboratory focused on investigating the mechanisms underlying obesity-related insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Haiyan earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University, where her doctoral research investigated the role of tumor necrosis factor-alpha in obesity-induced insulin resistance. She also holds an M.D. and M.S. from Beijing Medical University.