Samir Patel
Co-founder and CEO, Moonlight Therapeutics
Samir is an engineer with an entrepreneurial spirit. He is currently co-founder and CEO of Moonlight Therapeutics. Moonlight Therapeutics is focused on improving the quality of life for people with food allergies by providing patient-friendly treatments. The company has raised over $2.5 million in funding to develop a treatment for peanut allergy.
Prior to Moonlight Therapeutics, Samir was a co-founder of Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ: CLSD). Clearside is an ophthalmic pharmaceutical company developing targeted therapies for ocular diseases. He invented the suprachoroidal technology that lead to the creation of Clearside Biomedical and served as its Director of Research from inception to the end of 2016. In approximately 5 years the company went from university lab to phase 3 clinical trials and an IPO. The company is currently awaiting FDA approval of it's lead program. Prior to that he was at Georgia Institute of Technology where he obtained his doctoral degree in Chemical Engineering and focused on research using microneedles for ocular drug delivery. He worked for Alza Corporation (a J&J company) on controlled release oral drug products between his undergraduate and graduate degrees. Samir obtained a dual B.S. degree in Chemical and Material Science Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. He emigrated from India to the USA when he was about 5 years old.