Mason Freeman

Mason Freeman, M.D. joined 5AM Ventures as a Scientific Advisor in 2007 and became a Venture Partner in 2008. He serves as Chief of the Lipid Metabolism Unit and Director of Translational Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School. Dr. Freeman currently serves as clinical advisor to Relypsa and previously served as Board Director for Envoy (acquired by Takeda). Trained in internal medicine and endocrinology, Dr. Freeman has spent twenty years studying the trafficking of cholesterol into and out of macrophages. As a post-doctoral research fellow in the Biology Department at MIT he cloned the first macrophage scavenger receptor to be molecularly identified. In 1992 he became Chief of the MGH’s Lipid Metabolism Unit, which he continues to direct as well as the Translational Medicine programs at the MGH Center for Computational and Integrative Biology and the MGH Clinical Research Program. In these roles he oversees a basic science research laboratory devoted to studying lipid trafficking as well as a clinical investigative team developing a novel oral anti-diabetic drug.