Harmony Biosciences has appointed Peter Anastasiou as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, effective January 1, 2027. Anastasiou, currently Harmony’s Senior EVP and Chief Operating Officer and a former member of its board, brings more than three decades of biopharma experience commercializing, acquiring and developing treatments for broad and rare CNS diseases. He succeeds Jeffrey M. Dayno, M.D., who will retire as President and CEO and step down from the board on December 31, 2026.
“Peter is the right leader for Harmony’s next phase of growth,” said Jeffrey S. Aronin, founder and Chairman of the Board of Harmony. Aronin noted that Anastasiou knows the business deeply and has been an important contributor to Harmony’s strategy, pipeline and business development work. Dayno said he has great confidence in Anastasiou’s leadership and will support the transition, serving as a non-executive advisor to the company throughout 2027.
Anastasiou said he’s honored to serve as Harmony’s next CEO. He pointed to the company’s strong commercial capabilities, diverse CNS pipeline and balance sheet, which allows Harmony to be self-funded and invest in new opportunities. He added that he looks forward to building on the foundation Dayno and the team have established.
About Peter Anastasiou
Anastasiou joined Harmony as Chief Operating Officer in April 2026 after serving on the company’s board since November 2023. Before that, he was Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Capsida Biotherapeutics, a targeted, non-invasive gene therapy platform company, for nearly four years. He led Capsida through a period of significant growth, raising more than $165 million and securing partnerships with AbbVie and Lilly.
He previously spent more than 12 years at Lundbeck, most recently as Executive Vice President, member of the global executive committee and President of North America. There he led an organization of about 1,200 employees with annual net revenues above $1.5 billion. He helped develop, acquire, license, launch and commercialize multiple broad and rare CNS therapies, and he represented Lundbeck on the board of PhRMA for more than four years. Earlier in his career, he held marketing leadership roles at Neuronetics, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly.
Anastasiou holds an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and a B.A. in Economics and Management from Albion College.
About Harmony Biosciences
Harmony Biosciences is a pharmaceutical company developing and commercializing innovative therapies for patients with rare neurological diseases who have unmet medical needs. Founded by Paragon Biosciences in 2017, the company is headquartered in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Its lead product, WAKIX, has become a leading treatment in narcolepsy.
