JK

John W. Kozarich

Chairman at Ligand Pharmaceuticals

John W. Kozarich, Ph.D., has served as a member of the 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 a 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.

Timeline

  • Chairman

    Current role