Amit MunshiFounder

United States - Park City, Utah

Amit Munshi was most recently President and CEO of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:ARNA). He assumed the helm in 2016 and led the $300m market cap company through a turnaround process including revamping the Board of Directors and management, resetting priorities, and migrating the company from a retail base to an institutionally-backed company. In December 2021, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) acquired ARNA for approximately $6.7B.

From 2012-2016, Mr. Munshi was President & CEO of EPIRUS Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., (NASDAQ:EPRS). During this time, he led the turnaround of the TPG-backed biosimilar company. EPRS concluded with an asset sale to a European concern in 2016.

Prior to EPIRUS he was the President and CEO of Percivia LLC, a Crucell NV and Royal DSM NV joint-venture focused on biotherapeutics on the PER.C6® cell platform. Mr. Munshi was brought in to lead the turnaround and reset strategy for Percivia. Percivia was acquired by Johnson and Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) in 2012.

Before Percivia, Mr. Munshi identified the lead asset (KYBELLA®), co-founded and was the Chief Business Officer of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:KYTH), a company focused on novel prescription therapeutics in aesthetic medicine. At KYTHERA Mr. Munshi led several rounds of financing and completed a $370M ex-North America license transaction with a division of Bayer. KYTH was sold to Allergan (NYSE:AGN) for $2.1B.

Prior to co-founding Kythera, Mr. Munshi spent 8 years at Amgen Inc. Mr. Munshi was the General Manager of Amgen’s European Nephrology Business Unit based in Switzerland with responsibility for ARANESP® and Mimpara®/Sensipar®. Prior to Switzerland, he was responsible for Amgen’s inflammation / immunology marketing including the launch of KINERET® and playing a leading role in the acquisition of Immunex Corp (Nasdaq:IMNX), sales and marketing integration and the re-launch of Enbrel®.

Previous to working at Amgen, Mr. Munshi held commercial positions during tenures at Astra Merck (Prilosec®) and IOLAB Corporation (a JNJ Company).

Mr Munshi is also a co-founder of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc (Private) and a member of the board of directors of Enterprise Therapeutics (Private), Galecto (Nasdaq;GLTO), StealthCo (MPM backed private company), and Whimzzi Corp. (Private) He is also an advisor to Ares Capital (debt fund).

Mr. Munshi received a MBA from The Peter Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and holds a BA in History and a BS in Quantitative Economics from the University of California, Riverside.