Epirium Bio Names BioMarin’s Somaratne Its Chief Medical Officer

Epirium Bio, which recently raised $85 million to develop new drugs for disorders associated with mitochondrial depletion, appointed Ransi Somaratne as its chief medical officer.

Somaratne was most recently core team leader for the BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BMRN]]) hemophilia A gene therapy program, where he led the group that has asked the FDA to review its potential gene therapy for the treatment of hemophilia A. His experience also includes time at Amgen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMGN]]) and at NGM Biopharmaceuticals. San Diego-based Epirium’s lead drug candidate is targeting Becker muscular dystrophy.

Author: Sarah de Crescenzo

Sarah is Xconomy's San Diego-based editor. Prior to joining the team in 2018, she wrote about startups, tech and finance at the San Diego Business Journal. Her decade of full-time news experience includes coverage of subjects including campaign finance, crime and courts as a reporter and editor at outlets throughout California, including the Orange County Register. She earned a bachelor's degree in English Literature at UC San Diego, where she wrote for the student newspaper and played collegiate lacrosse. In 2019, she earned an MBA at UC Irvine.