Santhera proposes Dr Srishti Gupta for board ahead of May AGM

Santhera Pharmaceuticals has proposed Dr Srishti Gupta as an independent director, to be elected at the company's Annual General Meeting on 26 May 2026. The Swiss-listed specialty pharma, which markets the dissociative steroid AGAMREE (vamorolone) for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, said Gupta's operational and commercial background would support its ambitions to broaden global access to the drug.

Board chairman Thomas Meier said Gupta's "depth of experience as a physician executive, CEO, and board director, combined with her strong track record of execution and value creation in publicly listed companies and her pharma strategy insights will be invaluable to Santhera as we enter our next phase of growth."

A track record built in turnaround and growth

Gupta holds MD, MPP, and MPhil degrees from Harvard University and the University of Cambridge. She brings more than two decades of leadership across biopharmaceuticals, global health, and strategy consulting. Most recently she served as chief executive of Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, the Swiss biotech spun out from Actelion, where she led a restructuring that the release says more than doubled revenues, restructured the company's debt, raised new capital, and tripled market capitalisation. Before moving into executive roles she spent 18 years at McKinsey & Company, where she led the firm's Global Health Practice for over a decade.

Her appointment, if approved by shareholders, would add a publicly listed company turnaround specialist to a board that is navigating a complex multi-territory licensing structure for AGAMREE. The drug holds regulatory approvals across the US (FDA), EU (European Commission), UK (MHRA), Switzerland (Swissmedic), China (NMPA), Hong Kong, and Canada, with out-licensing agreements covering North America (Catalyst Pharmaceuticals), China and parts of Southeast Asia (Sperogenix Therapeutics), and Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand (Nxera Pharma).

Market context

Board-level renewal is a routine but meaningful signal for commercial-stage rare-disease companies. Santhera competes in the DMD space against established corticosteroid regimens and a growing field of gene therapy and exon-skipping approaches from larger players.