Board of Directors

Directors

John Kozarich, Ph.D.

Chairman

 John W. Kozarich, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board since March 2003. Since November 2019, Dr. Kozarich has served as interim Chief Executive Officer of Curza Global, LLC, a biopharmaceutical company, where he has served as a member of the board of directors since February 2019. Dr. Kozarich also serves as Distinguished Scientist Emeritus of ActivX Biosciences, Inc., and previously served as ActivX’s Chairman and President from 2004 through March 2017. From 1992 to 2001, Dr. Kozarich was vice president at Merck Research Laboratories and previously held professorships at the University of Maryland and Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Kozarich is also an adjunct professor of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin and serves on the board of Intec Pharma Ltd., a publicly-traded biotechnology company. Previously, Dr. Kozarich served as a director of ActivX Biosciences Inc., Corium Intl, Novelion Therapeutics and Retrophin, Inc. He is also a recipient of the Distinguished Scientist Award from the San Diego Section of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Kozarich earned his B.S. in chemistry, summa cum laude, from Boston College, his Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard.

Jason Aryeh

Jason M. Aryeh has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2006. Mr. Aryeh has more than twenty years of equity investment experience focused on the life sciences industry. He is the Founder and Managing General Partner of JALAA Equities, LP, a private investment fund focused on the biotechnology and medical device sectors. He has served in such capacity since 1997. Mr. Aryeh currently serves on the board of directors of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals, a publicly-traded biotechnology company as well as on the board of directors of Orchestra BioMed, a privately-held life sciences company. Since 2006, Mr. Aryeh has served as chairman of the board, on the board of directors or as a consultant to many other public and private life sciences companies and charitable foundations, including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Therapeutics board. Mr. Aryeh also serves as chairman of the board of directors of Rio Grande Solar and Rio Grande Renewables, LLC, a renewable energy company he co-founded in 2009 which serves the Americas. Mr. Aryeh earned a B.A. in economics, with honors, from Colgate University, and is a member of the Omnicron Delta Epsilon Honor Society in economics.

Todd Davis

Todd C. Davis is Ligand’s Chief Executive Officer, a position he has held since December 2022, and has served as a member of the Board since March 2007. From 2006 until 2018, Mr. Davis was a Founder and Managing Partner of HealthCare Royalty Partners, a global healthcare investment firm which grew from zero to approximately $4 billion in capital commitments during his tenure. Previously, Mr. Davis served as a partner responsible for biopharmaceutical growth equity investments at Apax Partners. Mr. Davis began his business career in sales at Abbott Laboratories where he held several sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility. Subsequently he led corporate development and held strategic planning and general management responsibilities at Elan Pharmaceuticals. Cumulatively he has almost thirty years of experience in both operations and investing in the biopharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Mr. Davis has been involved in over $3 billion of healthcare financings including growth equity, public equity turnarounds, structured debt and royalty acquisitions. He has also led, structured and closed over 40 additional intellectual property licenses, as well as hybrid royalty-debt transactions. Mr. Davis is a navy combat veteran and holds a B.S. from the U.S. Naval Academy and an M.B.A. from Harvard University. He currently also serves on the boards of Palvella Therapeutics Inc. and ViroCell Biologics – both privately held companies. He is a former board member of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association.

Nancy Gray, Ph.D.

Nancy R. Gray, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board of directors since of August 2017. Dr. Gray has acted as the President and CEO of Gordon Research Conferences (GRC), a non-profit organization focused on organizing international scientific conferences, since 2003. In her capacity as CEO of the GRC, she is dedicated to social equality initiatives such as managing a diversity initiative that supports the attendance of over 250 U.S. underrepresented minority scientists at GRC each year and working with HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) to recruit minority undergraduate students for summer internships at GRC. From December 1997 until August 2003 she served as the Director of Membership for the American Chemical Society. Prior to that, Dr. Gray worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Exxon/Mobil Research and Engineering, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation focused on researching oil and gas. Dr. Gray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Chemical Society. She was a Research Fellow at the Foundation on Matter Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam, and completed the Harvard Executive Education Finance for Senior Executives program. She also has authored or co-authored numerous scientific articles. Dr. Gray received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in 1981 and her Ph.D. in Fuel Science from The Pennsylvania State University in 1985.

Jason Haas

Jason Haas is currently the CFO of Syros Pharmaceuticals, a Nasdaq listed biotech company focused on developing oncology therapeutics. Prior to Syros, Mr. Haas spent over 25 years in healthcare investment banking where he executed many strategic transactions and supported companies through equity and debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, divestures, and spin-offs. Mr. Haas served as Co-Head of Americas Healthcare Banking at Barclays, Head of Healthcare Investment Banking, Americas at Deutsche Bank and Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Haas holds an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School and an A.B. in International Relations and Economics from Colgate University.

John LaMattina, Ph.D.

John L. LaMattina, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board since February 2011. He spent 30 years at Pfizer Inc. with his last position starting in 2004 as President, Pfizer Global R&D. Dr. LaMattina began his career at Pfizer as a medicinal chemist in 1977. During his career, he was appointed to various positions of increasing responsibility for Pfizer Central Research, including Vice President of U.S. Discovery Operations in 1993, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Discovery Operations in 1998, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Development in 1999. Dr. LaMattina graduated with cum laude honors from Boston College with a B.S. in Chemistry. He received a Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire in Organic Chemistry and subsequently was at Princeton University in the National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship program. Dr. LaMattina is currently a senior advisor and board member at PureTech Health and serves on the boards of directors of Immunome, Inc., a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company, and several privately-held biopharmaceutical companies. From 2013 until May 2020, Dr. LaMattina served on the board of directors of Zafgen, Inc., a publicly-traded biotechnology company, until its acquisition by Chondrial Therapeutics, Inc. and subsequent name change to Larimar Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. LaMattina also serves on the scientific advisory board of Frequency Therapeutics, a publicly-trade biotechnology company. Dr. LaMattina is a contributing writer to Forbes magazine.

Stephen Sabba, MD

Stephen L. Sabba, M.D., has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2008. Dr. Sabba has been a leading Bio/Pharma Analyst and Fund Manager for Knott Partners, L.P., an investment fund company, since November 2006. Previously he was a Partner and Director of Research with Kilkenny Capital Management, a Chicago-based Health Care hedge fund. Prior to that, Dr. Sabba was Director of Research at Sturza’s Medical Research, and previously was a gastroenterologist and internist in private practice at Phelps Hospital in North Tarrytown, New York. He received his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine, and completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in New York City. He earned a B.S. with honors at Cornell University. Dr. Sabba served as a member of the board of the directors for Novelion Therapeutics Inc., a leading Canadian biotech company from June 2012 to January 2020.