Jay B. Lichter, Ph.D. currently serves as the company’s President and CEO. Dr. Lichter, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical business executive has over 20 years experience in management, scientific research and business development. Dr. Lichter has participated in licensing or M&A deals valued in excess of $1 billion. He is currently a Managing Director at Avalon Ventures and in that capacity is on the Board of Directors of aFRAXis, Carolus, Otonomy, Incode and Akesis. He is an observer at Syndax Board meetings. Until November 2008, Dr. Lichter served as President and CEO of Akesis Pharmaceuticals, a developer of patent protected diabetes drugs. He remains on the board of directors as Executive Chairman. In 2004, Dr. Lichter co-founded Sytera, Inc., and served as Vice President of Operations and Business Development which was acquired by Sirion Therapeutics, Inc. in July 2006.
Early in his career, Dr. Lichter was a co-founder of Sequana Therapeutics, a genomics-base drug discovery company. Dr. Lichter led negotiations in the development and management of collaborations with numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across many therapeutic areas. In 2000, Dr. Lichter co-founded and was CEO of Xenopharm, a drug safety company where he drove the development of the company and its ultimate acquisition by Deltagen. He served in management positions at Sequenom, Pfizer and Genset. Upon completing his Ph.D. in 1990, Dr. Lichter held a postdoctoral position in Human Genetics at Yale University, where he received broad training in areas of classical human genetics, clinical genetics & bioinformatics. During his 2 year tenure at Yale, Dr. Lichter continued his postdoctoral work at DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co., where he focused on pharmacogenetics. Dr. Lichter received a B.S. and Ph.D. from the Univ. of Illinois.
Charles A. Glass, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Senior V.P Research
Dr. Glass founded Zacharon to develop drugs that inhibit glycans, a novel class of drug targets that are under-recognized in the pharmaceutical industry. His experience and vision have steered Zacharon to continually add value to its scientific portfolio and to attract top quality scientists and advisors.
As a Senior Scientist at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute (PRI, La Jolla) (1994 -1999) he recognized the intense competition for novel drug targets. Dr Glass saw an opportunity in the glycan field where there is an entire class of untapped scientifically validated drug targets.
Dr. Glass studied glycans (Assistant Project Scientist 1999 – 2004) with Dr Jeff Esko at UCSD and co-founded Zacharon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2004. By focusing the company on the development of the companies’ proprietary high throughput inhibitor screen, Zacharon opened the class of glycan targets to drug development. This value approach has enabled Zacharon to attain numerous NIH grants and more recently Venture Capital funding from Avalon Ventures.
Dr. Glass received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His graduate work, his postgraduate research with Dr. Elaine Fuchs at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1984 – 1988) and his research as a Senior Scientific Associate at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA (1988-1994) focused on key classes of proteins in cell differentiation and development.
Timothy Scott, J.D.
Founder and President, Pharmatek Laboratories, San Diego, California.
Tim Scott is co-founder and President of Pharmatek Laboratories, Inc., a drug development company in San Diego. He is also a co-founder of Diakron Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company focused on cardiovascular disease. Mr. Scott serves on the Board of Directors for Orphagen Pharmaceuticals, an orphan nuclear receptor discovery company. He serves as immediate past president of the Board of Trustees for The Children School, an independent school located in La Jolla, California. He is a trustee of La Jolla Youth Baseball. He earned his B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He earned his J.D. from the University of San Diego and is a member of the California Bar.
