Don Payan

Don Payan, MD, is an experienced hands-on biotechnology physician-scientist-executive. During the past 30 years in biotechnology in the two companies he has founded (Khepri and Rigel), he has hired, organized and led highly productive multi discipline target and drug discovery and development teams in the areas of Immunology, Oncology and Muscle Wasting diseases. His teams have discovered and developed the first FDA approved oral SYK inhibitor for an autoimmune disease, as well as an additional 12 IND candidates. Moreover, he was instrumental in establishing multiple collaborations with pharmaceutical companies.

He received his BS in Physics and MD from Stanford University, and his MS in Physics from MIT. His residency in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease fellowship were done at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. An additional fellowship in Allergy Immunology was done at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also at HMS. Following his training at Harvard, he joined the faculty of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is an author of over 200 published articles and chapters, and an inventor on over 90 issued patents. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.