SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: LGND) announces the appointment of Christel Iffland, Ph.D. as a Vice President of Antibody Technologies.

Dr. Iffland joins Ligand from Merck KGaA/EMD Serono where she served as Group Leader of Antibody Display Technologies, a Senior Scientist of Phage Technologies and Structural Biology and Associate Director of Antibody Technologies. At Ligand, Dr. Iffland will support current and new partnerships and collaborations for the OmniAb franchise, providing scientific guidance and input. Additionally, she will contribute to the continued growth and next-generation innovation of OmniAb and to the technical assessment of new opportunities.

“Christel has been a longtime user of the OmniAb technology and we are delighted to welcome her to Ligand as we further expand our scientific team focused on antibodies and antibody technologies,” said John Higgins, Ligand’s Chief Executive Officer. “Our acquisition of the OmniAb technology last year transformed and expanded Ligand’s business model. Antibody treatments are the fastest-growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry and will continue to be an important area of focus for Ligand as we expand our portfolio of more than 150 fully-funded shots-on-goal.”

Dr. Iffland received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in Nice, France and completed post-doctoral research training at both the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Iffland is an author of numerous scientific publications and patents and is a prior recipient of the Merck Award for Patent and Inventorship.

About OmniAb^®

OmniAb includes three transgenic animal platforms for producing mono- and bispecific human therapeutic antibodies. OmniRat^® is the industry’s first human monoclonal antibody technology based on rats. It has a complete immune system with a diverse antibody repertoire and generates antibodies with human idiotypes as effectively as wild-type animals make rat antibodies. OmniMouse^® is a transgenic mouse that complements OmniRat and expands epitope coverage. OmniFlic^® is an engineered rat with a fixed light chain for development of bispecific, fully human antibodies. The three platforms use patented technology, have broad freedom to operate and deliver fully human antibodies with high affinity, specificity, expression, solubility and stability.

About Ligand Pharmaceuticals

Ligand is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing or acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies discover and develop medicines. Our business model creates value for stockholders by providing a diversified portfolio of biotech and pharmaceutical product revenue streams that are supported by an efficient and low corporate cost structure. Our goal is to offer investors an opportunity to participate in the promise of the biotech industry in a profitable, diversified and lower-risk business than a typical biotech company. Our business model is based on doing what we do best: drug discovery, early-stage drug development, product reformulation and partnering. We partner with other pharmaceutical companies to leverage what they do best (late-stage development, regulatory management and commercialization) to ultimately generate our revenue. Ligand’s Captisol^® platform technology is a patent-protected, chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs. OmniAb^® is a patent-protected transgenic animal platform used in the discovery of fully human mono-and bispecific therapeutic antibodies. Ligand has established multiple alliances, licenses and other business relationships with the world's leading pharmaceutical companies including Novartis, Amgen, Merck, Pfizer, Celgene, Gilead, Janssen, Baxter International and Eli Lilly.

Follow Ligand on Twitter @Ligand_LGND.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements by Ligand that involve risks and uncertainties and reflect Ligand's judgment as of the date of this release. Actual events or results may differ from our expectations. For example, there can be no assurances that Ligand will be able to develop a next-generation OmniAb technology or that the antibody treatments will continue to be the fastest-growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry. The failure to meet expectations with respect to any of the foregoing matters may reduce Ligand's stock price. Additional information concerning these and other important risk factors affecting Ligand can be found in Ligand's prior press releases available at www.ligand.com as well as in Ligand's public periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available at www.sec.gov. Ligand disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements beyond the date of this press release, except as required by law. This caution is made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

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