Noubar Afeyan started his first life sciences company as a 24-year-old, fresh out of grad school at MIT. Now, more than 35 companies later, his Flagship Ventures is a Kendall kingmaker, having helped finance some of the buzziest biotech startups in the world.

Born to an Armenian family in Lebanon, Afeyan came to Cambridge for a PhD in biochemical engineering and never left. After selling his first company, PerSeptive Biosystems, in 1997, he sought to get back in the startup game but wanted to avoid the risky trial and error of traditional biotech entrepreneurialism.

So he industrialized the process.

Founded in 2000, Flagship places many of its bets on existing companies, but through its VentureLabs division, the firm devotes much of its time to creating startups from scratch. VentureLabs acts as a combination talent scout, incubator, and seed-stage financier all in one, licensing new technologies and building companies around them.

Outside of his work in business, Afeyan is an active humanitarian, cofounding the Armenian genocide remembrance project 100 Lives. Last month, accompanied by George Clooney, Afeyan went to Armenia to distribute a $1.1 million award granted to organizations working to prevent genocide.

Damian Garde can be reached at damian.garde@statnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @damiangarde. Follow Stat on Twitter: @statnews.