Michael Martino

Mike has a track record of building and leading multidisciplinary teams, developing focused strategies, negotiating deals, and raising capital in the private and public sectors. From November 2011 to November 2014 he was President, CEO, and a member of the board of Ambit Biosciences, where he built and lead the team that: accelerated the development of the company’s lead drug from Phase 2 to Phase 3, completed a successful IPO in May 2013, and closed a merger with Daiichi Sankyo in November 2014. Prior to Ambit, Mike was a co-founder and CEO of Arzeda, a synthetic biology company that he helped spin out of the University of Washington. From 1998 to 2007 Mike was President, CEO, and a member of the board of Sonus Pharmaceuticals, a publicly-traded company, where he refocused the company on oncology drugs, accelerated the development of the company’s lead drug from preclinical studies to the completion of a pivotal Phase 3 study in five years, raised more than $100 million in new capital and ultimately engineered the company’s reverse merger with Oncogenex Technologies. Mike began his career with Mallinckrodt in 1983 where, over 15-years, he progressed through staff positions in planning, business development, marketing, and general management, including VP & General Manager of Mallinckrodt’s global nuclear medicine business. Mike has a BBA from Roanoke College and an MBA from Virginia Tech. He sits on the board of Arzeda and is a prior Chair of the Board of the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA) and of the Board of Trustees of Cascadia Community College, all in Seattle.