Chief Executive, President, Arcutis Biotherapeutics Inc.
Watanabe has been the president of Westlake Village-based Arcutis Biotherapeutics since 2016 and became chief executive in 2017. Prior to joining Arcutis, he co-founded and was the chief operating officer at Kanan Therapeutics, a cardiovascular drug development company. He was also vice president of strategy and corporate development at Kythera Biopharmaceuticals and held an executive position at Amgen Inc. from 2005 to 2013. At Amgen, he was involved in the development of the cholesterol treatment Repatha and the migraine prevention drug Aimovig. He also contributed to the U.S. marketing of Enbrel in both dermatology and rheumatology.