Purnanand Sarma, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

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Dr. Sarma, most recently, served as the CEO of Immunome (NASDAQ:IMNM) that he successfully led through an IPO in 2020, a large pharma transaction and a merger bringing in the ex-CEO of SEAGEN as the new CEO, with a concurrent $125M private financing in 2023.   Dr. Sarma’s pharmaceutical experience spans more than three decades, with an extensive background in drug development, from discovery through approval, and a robust track record of value creation, including initial public offering (IPO), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), asset and company transactions. He has more than 13 years of experience as an operating CEO and board member for both private and public companies.

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Prior to Immunome, Dr. Sarma led TARIS Biomedical as its CEO through the sale of its first program for interstitial cystitis to Allergan, and before the company was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2019. Prior to his CEO roles, he also held positions of increasing responsibility at Cephalon Corporation, Nektar Therapeutics, and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Sarma has a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) degree from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India.