Left to right: Chemistry professor Benjamin Cravatt, PhD, the Norton B. Gilula Chair in Biology and Chemistry at Scripps Research, and Lou Lange, MD, PhD, physician-scientist and general partner with Asset Management Ventures. Credit: Scripps Research.
Professor Benjamin Cravatt and physician-scientist Lou Lange join Scripps Research Board of Directors
November 19, 2024
Scripps Research has added Benjamin Cravatt, PhD, professor of Chemistry and the Norton B. Gilula Chair in Biology and Chemistry at Scripps Research, and Lou Lange, MD, PhD, physician-scientist and general partner with Asset Management Ventures, to its Board of Directors.
Cravatt, who serves on the board as a faculty board appointee, joined the Scripps Research faculty in 1996 after receiving his doctorate degree from the institute.
At Scripps Research, Cravatt’s work has led to groundbreaking discoveries, including activity-based protein profiling—the measurement of activity and drug interactions of proteins on a global scale—which has led to new drug candidates entering clinical trials. His work has also led to the discovery of new enzymatic pathways that are altered in cancer and neurological diseases.
In addition to overseeing a research lab, he co-founded several biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including the drug discovery companies Abide Therapeutics, acquired by Lundbeck in 2019, and Vividion Therapeutics, a company developing small molecule therapeutics that was acquired by Bayer in 2021.
He has earned numerous accolades, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, elections to the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences, a Searle Scholar Award, the Eli Lilly Prize in Biological Chemistry, a Cope Scholar Award, the ASBMB Merck Award, the RSC Jeremy Knowles Award, and the AACR Award for Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research.
Cravatt received a BS in Biology and a BA in History from Stanford University and a PhD in Macromolecular and Cellular Structure and Chemistry from Scripps Research in 1996.
In joining the board, Lange brings more than two decades of experience in academic medicine at Harvard and Washington University. He is a former Chief of Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, and is currently a general partner at Asset Management Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage digital health, technology and life sciences companies that has held more than 50 healthcare companies in its portfolio.
Lange’s role on the board will include working with the Calibr-Skaggs Committee, which oversees the Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines, the drug discovery arm of Scripps Research.
Over his career, Lange has founded multiple biotechnology companies, including CV Therapeutics, where he served as Chairman and CEO for 19 years. There, he led the company through IPO in 1996, pipeline development, and the commercial launches of two first-in-class drugs: Lexiscan®, a first-in-class adenosine A2a receptor agonist for use in myocardial perfusion imaging studies, and Ranexa®, a billion-dollar first-in-class late sodium channel blocker. After Gilead purchased CV Therapeutics in 2009 for $1.5 billion, he joined Gilead as Operating Committee Member and Senior Advisor for 10 years.
He has also served on multiple boards, including at the University of Rochester, the Institute of Systems Biology, the Gladstone Foundation at UCSF, and BIO—the world’s largest advocacy association representing biotechnology companies, academic and research institutions.
Lange holds a BA in Chemistry from the University of Rochester and an MD and PhD in Biological Chemistry from Harvard University.
For more information, contact press@scripps.edu