Dr. Heyman is a founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Metacrine, Inc. He previously was founder and CEO of Seragon Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based biotech company developing Selective Estrogen Receptor Degraders (SERDs) targeting estrogen dependent cancers. In August 2014, Genentech/Roche acquired Seragon. Prior to Seragon, Dr. Heyman co-founded and was CEO of Aragon Pharmaceuticals, which developed next generation therapeutics for hormone dependent cancers based on new insights into molecular mechanisms of resistance. Johnson & Johnson purchased Aragon in August 2013 and simultaneous with this acquisition, Seragon Pharmaceuticals was spun out and created. Previously, he co-founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of X-Ceptor Therapeutics, a company that developed compounds targeting nuclear receptors for the treatment of metabolic diseases, which was acquired by Exelixis in 2004. Prior to X-Ceptor, Dr. Heyman held various roles at Ligand Pharmaceuticals, including Vice President of Research, where he served as project leader leading to the successful identification and development of Panretin® and Targretin®, retinoids approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer. He is the author or inventor on more than 120 publications and patents.
Dr. Heyman serves on the Board of Trustees of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and is a board member of Organovo Inc., and BIOCOM. He is also a member of the Therapeutic Advisory Board for aTyr Pharma and serves on the Executive Committee of the UCSD Moores Cancer Center. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow and staff scientist at the Salk Institute, working with Dr. Ronald Evans.
He received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Connecticut.