A cross-disciplinary team with expertise in clinical development and royalty investing.

Paul J. Hadden

Paul Hadden is Senior Vice President of Investments and Business Development at Ligand. Before joining the company, he spent more than 15 years at HealthCare Royalty Partners, a global healthcare investment firm, where he was responsible for business development, deal sourcing and structuring in the U.S. and Europe.

Prior to HealthCare Royalty Partners, Mr. Hadden served as a Principal at The Frankel Group (now Oliver Wyman), where he advised leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. Mr. Hadden began his career at New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a senior financial analyst.

Mr. Hadden holds a BA from Yale College and an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health. He is a former board member and vice president of The Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health (AYAPH).

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter is Senior Vice President of Investment Operations and a member of the Investment Committee at Ligand. He has worked across the healthcare landscape and brings to the firm decades of commercialization and investment experience, including control equity and minority equity investments, senior secured debt financings, royalty financings, public bank debt and bond transactions.

Mr. Baxter is a co-founder of the healthcare group for the Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund at Fortress Investment Group, which invested approximately $1 billion in emerging life sciences companies. He also previously served as co-head of the healthcare team at Hayfin Capital Management LLP, which deployed $1.4 billion in capital over four years. Before starting his investment career, he held senior operating roles in the pharmaceutical industry, including positions at PathoGenesis Corp., ViroPharma Inc., and SmithKline Beecham. He earned an AB (cum laude) from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Keith Marschke, Ph.D.

Keith Marschke, PhD, joined Ligand in 1994. He has had leadership roles in many of Ligand’s most successful internal and collaborative discovery and development programs, including the Thrombopoietin (TPO) Receptor Agonist, Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator (SARM), Glucagon Receptor Antagonist (GRA), and Captisol®-enabled Iohexol programs. He is currently leading clinical and scientific due diligence on Ligand’s asset purchase (royalties) and project finance investments and monitors the clinical development of the partnered program portfolio.

Dr. Marschke has authored and contributed to numerous publications and patents during his tenure at Ligand and held a postdoctoral research position in the Laboratories for Reproductive Biology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill prior to joining the company. He holds a PhD in molecular and cellular pathobiology from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University and earned a BS in Biology from Oklahoma Baptist University.

Karen Reeves, M.D.

Dr. Karen Reeves is Ligand’s Senior Vice President, Investments and Head of Clinical Strategy. She brings to the role more than 20 years of experience in senior positions at top pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Inc. She has extensive experience in Phase 1 through 4 drug development across multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, oncology, immunology, pulmonary, cardiovascular, infectious diseases, vaccines, urology, women’s health, and rare diseases.

Before joining Ligand, Dr. Reeves served as President and Chief Medical Officer of AZTherapies, Inc., a private, late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on developing drugs for neuroinflammation and severe neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s and ALS. Before AZTherapies, Dr. Reeves held multiple leadership positions at Pfizer including Vice President, Worldwide Research and Development, Vice President, Worldwide Safety & Regulatory, and Head of Global Clinical Submissions Quality. During her tenure at Pfizer, she held leadership roles in several successful global development programs and approvals, including three marketed drugs in neuroscience, and served as team lead for the Prix Galien Award winner for Best Pharmaceutical (CHANTIX®). She previously served as Vice President and Head of Global Medical Science, at Astellas Pharma Inc., where she oversaw global medical physicians across therapeutic areas, including the clinical lead for XTANDI®, a prostate cancer treatment that was ultimately sold to Pfizer.

Dr. Reeves earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.D. from the University of Vermont Medical School and has held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University School of Medicine. She also collaborated with a private group on the creation of a documentary that helped win $2.5B in federal funding in 2023 for a new Agency NIH/US DHHS ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health), a DARPA-like group to drive high-risk, high-reward in health care.

Lee Brown

Lee Brown is Vice President of Investments and Business Development at Ligand. Prior to joining the firm, he served as Global Team Leader for Healthcare at research firm Third Bridge Group.

He was the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Reef Knot Capital, which directed a market-neutral, healthcare equities portfolio. He was also a Portfolio Manager at Visium Asset Management and held positions at Highland Capital Management and Merrill Lynch.

Mr. Brown served as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS from the United States Naval Academy.

Lauren Hay

Lauren Hay is Vice President of Portfolio Strategy and Investments at Ligand. She brings nearly two decades of life sciences experience, including deep investment, strategy, analytics, and portfolio management expertise.

Before joining Ligand, Ms. Hay built Hay Advisory Corporation, a successful boutique biopharmaceutical consulting practice spanning more than 50 clients and nearly 200 project engagements. Her client base included large global biopharmaceutical companies, early-stage biotech companies, and private equity firms. Prior to founding Hay Advisory, Ms. Hay served as the Vice President and later Director of Investment Analysis and Research at DRI Capital, a Toronto-based private equity firm focused on pharmaceutical royalty monetization. She also spent several years as a Senior Consultant at The Frankel Group (now Oliver Wyman) in New York.

Ms. Hay earned her BA in Human Biology with Phi Beta Kappa Honors at Stanford University. She completed her MBA with Honors in Health Care Management at The Wharton School. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Primrose Bio.

Peter Renehan, M.D.

Peter Renehan, M.D., is Vice President of Investments and Business Development at Ligand. Prior to joining the firm, he was with Blackstone Life Sciences for six years, where he most recently served as Principal and led sourcing, due diligence, and execution of investments ranging from $100 million to more than $1 billion. He also worked as an Investment Banking Associate at Lazard, Inc., where he focused on biopharmaceutical M&A. His experience prior to Lazard includes corporate strategy roles at Moderna Therapeutics and Flagship Pioneering.

Dr. Renehan holds an M.D. and an MBA from Harvard University and a BA in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross.

Michael Vigilante

Michael Vigilante is Ligand’s Vice President of Investments and Business Development. He brings to his role over a decade of experience in life sciences investing, company building, and transaction advisory.

Mr. Vigilante joined Ligand from life sciences investment firm Gurnet Point Capital, where he was a Senior Principal integrally involved across a range of investments and served on boards of directors. Prior to Gurnet Point, Michael worked in investment banking at MTS Health Partners, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions and financings across the biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare services sectors.

Mr. Vigilante graduated from the Vagelos LSM Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both a BA in Biology and a BS in Economics from The Wharton School.

Ruben Flores-Saaib, Ph.D

Ruben Flores-Saaib, Ph.D. is Ligand’s Senior Director, Investments and Business Development and brings to his role decades of experience leading teams working on commercialization and partnering programs in therapeutics, life sciences, diagnostics, artificial intelligence, materials, and software.

For 10 years, Dr. Flores-Saaib led Technology Transfer groups at LA BioMed (now the Lundquist Institute), USC and the University of California system. He joined Ligand from General Inception, where he served as Academic Innovations and Partnerships Lead spearheading efforts on new company formation and investment in therapeutics, synthetic biology and life sciences tools. He also held roles at BD Biosciences Pharmigen, Biosite (now Abbott), Chemicon (acquired by Serologicals), and MilliporeSigma.

Dr. Flores-Saaib received his Ph.D. from UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He is co-founder and former president of the San Diego Innovation Council and is a member of AUTM (the Association of University Technology Managers).