Richard Heyman

Richard A. Heyman, PhD, has 20 years of drug discovery experience in the biotech sector and, most recently, cofounded Aragon Pharmaceuticals in 2009. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer at Kalypsys, Inc., where he conducted drug discovery in therapeutic areas such as metabolic diseases, pain, and inflammation. In 1999, he cofounded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of X-Ceptor Therapeutics, a company that developed compounds targeting nuclear receptors for the treatment of metabolic diseases. X-Ceptor was acquired by Exelixis in 2004. Before X-Ceptor, he was Vice President of Research at Ligand Pharmaceuticals and was project leader for multiple discovery programs, including the successful identification and development of Panretin® and Targretin®, retinoids approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow and staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He received a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota and a BS in chemistry from the University of Connecticut.