PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Harmony Biosciences Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: HRMY), today announced the appointment of Adam Zaeske as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), effective March 31, 2025. The company’s current CCO, Jeffrey Dierks, is voluntarily stepping down for personal reasons.
Zaeske brings 25 years of global leadership across the pharmaceutical industry, building teams and transforming organizations in both the U.S. and Europe. He has broad functional experience spanning commercial strategy and operations, sales, marketing, market access, new product planning and finance. At Harmony, Zaeske will be responsible for leading the company’s commercial organization, setting commercial strategy, driving market expansion in the U.S. and abroad, and ensuring strong execution across all brands and geographies. His deep expertise in launching products, including in rare diseases, coupled with his extensive experience in scaling commercial operations and embedding strong capabilities, will be pivotal as Harmony builds on the commercial success of WAKIX® (pitolisant) and prepares to advance its late-stage pipeline assets toward approvals both in the U.S. and other territories to serve even more patients worldwide.
“I am very excited to welcome Adam to the team as we build upon the commercial success of WAKIX in narcolepsy and prepare for our next phase of growth,” said Jeffrey M. Dayno, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Harmony Biosciences. “As Harmony continues to execute on our growth strategy, Adam’s deep commercial expertise, proven leadership across both the US and international markets, and experience launching and growing brands, including in rare diseases, make him the ideal person to lead our Commercial team and drive our next phase of growth. I also want to express my gratitude to Jeffrey Dierks for his contributions in building Harmony’s strong commercial foundation and leading the successful launch and commercialization of WAKIX. With this foundation, we remain confident in our 2025 revenue guidance and in WAKIX being a $1B plus opportunity in adult narcolepsy alone.”
Zaeske most recently served as Head of Central, South, and Eastern Europe at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he managed a $2 billion business spanning 25 countries and nearly 900 employees. Under his leadership, the region delivered three consecutive years of double-digit growth and contributed the largest portion of revenue and growth for Takeda’s European and Canadian business. Zaeske has also successfully led commercial organizations in the U.S. and Europe across multiple therapeutic areas, including rare diseases, neuroscience, immunology, hematology, oncology and gastroenterology, ensuring patient access to innovative therapies and driving long-term portfolio growth. Zaeske holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated with honors from the University of Michigan with a degree in Business Administration and Finance.
“I am impressed by the Harmony team, their clarity of purpose in helping people living with rare neurological diseases, and the success of WAKIX in narcolepsy,” said Zaeske. “I am very excited to be joining the organization at such a pivotal time with the opportunity to expand on that success with the next-generation pitolisant formulations as well as the late-stage products in their robust pipeline as they advance toward commercialization. My experiences in both rare disease and neurology were tremendously rewarding parts of my career, and I look forward to returning to these therapeutic areas and contributing to Harmony’s potential to help many more patients who are living with unmet medical needs.”
Zaeske’s appointment comes as Harmony’s portfolio is poised for significant growth, driven by a catalyst-rich pipeline with late-stage assets that have global rights, and strategic initiatives designed to expand its reach of innovative products to patients around the world.
About WAKIX® (pitolisant) Tablets
WAKIX, a first-in-class medication, is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) or cataplexy in adult patients with narcolepsy and for the treatment of EDS in pediatric patients 6 years of age and older with narcolepsy. It was granted orphan drug designation for the treatment of narcolepsy in 2010, and breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of cataplexy in 2018. WAKIX is a selective histamine 3 (H₃) receptor antagonist/inverse agonist. The mechanism of action of WAKIX is unclear; however, its efficacy could be mediated through its activity at H₃ receptors, thereby increasing the synthesis and release of histamine, a wake promoting neurotransmitter. WAKIX was designed and developed by Bioprojet (France). Harmony has an exclusive license from Bioprojet to develop, manufacture and commercialize pitolisant in the United States.
About Harmony Biosciences
Harmony Biosciences is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing innovative therapies for patients with rare neurological diseases who have unmet medical needs. Driven by novel science, visionary thinking, and a commitment to those who feel overlooked, Harmony Biosciences is nurturing a future full of therapeutic possibilities that may enable patients with rare neurological diseases to truly thrive. Established by Paragon Biosciences, LLC, in 2017 and headquartered in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., we believe that when empathy and innovation meet, a better future can begin; a vision evident in the therapeutic innovations we advance, the culture we cultivate, and the community programs we foster. For more information, please visit www.harmonybiosciences.com.
