DURHAM, N.C.– Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AERI), an ophthalmic pharmaceutical company, today announced that Raj Kannan will join the Company as Chief Executive Officer and a director, effective December 20, 2021.
“On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am very pleased to welcome Raj Kannan to Aerie. During the search process, the Board was pleased to interview several strong candidates and Raj rose to the top of the list during the process. Raj brings a track record of building effective organizations and teams, launching and growing products in the U.S. and globally, building commercial operations, providing strategic direction to pipeline development and successfully guiding companies through important inflections in their growth trajectories,” said Benjamin F. McGraw, III, Pharm.D., Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Dr. McGraw continued, “With a strong commercial franchise in glaucoma, solid research and development foundation and a pipeline led by two-Phase 3-ready programs, Aerie is poised to fulfill its goal of becoming a leading ophthalmology company under Raj’s thoughtful and strategic leadership.”
“The Aerie team has built an impressive ophthalmology company with an exciting glaucoma franchise that is global in reach and an exciting pipeline of product development candidates that has the potential to create significant value,” said Raj Kannan, Chief Executive Officer. “I am honored to have this opportunity to lead the company and work with this team to deliver on our commercial prospects and realize the full promise of our pipeline.”
Raj Kannan has over 25 years of experience leading and developing companies. He has effectively led and grown organizations and supported multiple successful launches across therapeutic areas in the U.S. and globally. Prior to joining Aerie, Raj was the CEO and President of Chiasma, Inc., where he led the organization through the approval and the launch of the first oral therapy in over a decade for patients with acromegaly and subsequently through the acquisition by Amryt Pharma Plc. Before that, Raj was Chief Commercial Officer at Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (“Kiniksa”), where he built the commercial operations, including sales, marketing and business analytics functions. Prior to Kiniksa, Raj served as the Global Head of the Neurology and Immunology business franchise at Merck KGaA, where he was responsible for transforming the largest franchise into a growth franchise with $2B in annual revenues through significant strategic shifts in investment to support new product introductions and through recalibration of pipeline investments. Before that, Raj spent ten years at Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH in the U.S., Canada and in Germany, including as Global Marketing Head of the Cardiovascular Franchise, where he was responsible for more than $3.5B in annual revenues. Raj currently serves as a non-executive board member for Amryt Pharma Plc.
