Karen Reeves

Karen Reeves, MD is Senior Vice President, Investments and Head Clinical Strategy, for Ligand. Ligand is a leading royalty aggregator that partners with biopharmaceutical companies to finance and advance late-stage clinical development programs. Dr. Reeves brings more than 20 years of experience in senior positions at top pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Inc. She has extensive experience in Phase 1 through 4 drug development across multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, oncology, immunology, pulmonary, cardiovascular, infectious diseases, vaccines, urology, women’s health, rare diseases, and business development.

Before joining Ligand, Dr. Reeves served as President and Chief Medical Officer at AZTherapies, Inc., a private, late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on developing drugs for neuroinflammation and severe neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s and ALS. Before AZTherapies, Dr. Reeves held multiple leadership positions at Pfizer including Vice President, Worldwide Research & Development, Vice President Worldwide Safety & Regulatory, and Head of Global Clinical Submissions Quality. During her tenure at Pfizer, she held leadership roles in several successful global development programs and approvals, including three marketed drugs in neuroscience, and served as team lead for the Prix Galien Award Winner for Best Pharmaceutical (Chantix®). She previously served as Vice President and Head of Global Medical Science, at Astellas Pharma Inc., where she oversaw global medical physicians across therapeutic areas, including the clinical lead for XTANDI®, a prostate cancer treatment that was ultimately sold to Pfizer.

Dr. Reeves earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.D. from the University of Vermont Medical School and has held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Reeves also collaborated with a private group on the creation of a documentary that helped win $2.5B in federal funding in 2023 for a new Agency NIH/US DHHS ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health), a DARPA-like group to drive high-risk, high reward in health care.