Highly Experienced Leaders

Dr. Lang is an Anesthesiologist and Pain Management Specialist with over 26 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. During his pharmaceutical career, he has had both broad-based drug and device development expertise in a variety of therapeutic areas. Dr. Lang has experience in designing development programs from early translational stages through phase III including the successful filing of several recent INDs and NDAs.  Dr. Lang began his career with J&J and later worked for Novartis, Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Grunenthal USA, Covance, EnteraBio and Nevakar Inc. Dr. Lang earned his MD from Ben Gurion University, Israel and completed post graduate training at Emory University in Atlanta.

Richard Baxter is Senior Vice President of Investment Operations and a member of the Investment Committee at Ligand. He has worked across the healthcare landscape and brings to the firm decades of commercialization and investment experience, including control equity and minority equity investments, senior secured debt financings, royalty financings, public bank debt and bond transactions. Mr. Baxter is a co-founder of the healthcare group for the Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund at Fortress Investment Group, which invested approximately $1 billion in emerging life sciences companies. He also previously served as co-head of the healthcare team at Hayfin Capital Management LLP, which deployed $1.4 billion in capital over four years. Before starting his investment career, he held senior roles in the pharmaceutical industry as Head of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at PathoGensis Corp., ViroPharma Inc., and Marketing leadership at SmithKline Beecham. He earned an AB (cum laude) from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Knuettel has 30 years of management experience, growing early-stage and smallcap public companies. He has spent most of his career as a Chief Financial or Chief Strategic Officer at early-stage companies. He has raised more than $300 million via venture, public equity and debt offerings. He has managed more than 15 mergers and acquisition and has handled large-scale licensing transactions with fortune 50 companies. Mr. Knuettel also holds numerous board positions, at both public and private companies, including 180 Life Sciences (ATNF), ECOM Medical, Murphy Canyon Acquisition Corp. (MURF) and Relativity Acquisition Corp. (RACY). He holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA from Tufts University.

Scott M. Plesha serves as Chief Executive Officer of Pelthos. Mr. Plesha joined Pelthos in November 2023. He has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including two decades building and leading specialty pharma commercial organizations. Prior to joining Pelthos, Mr. Plesha was President and Chief Commercial Officer at BioDelivery Sciences (BDSI) until it was acquired by Collegium Pharmaceutical in 2022. Under Mr. Plesha’s leadership, BDSI sales grew from $5 million to $160 million. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Gastrointestinal Sales at Salix Pharmaceuticals. During his fifteen-year tenure at Salix, Mr. Plesha led a nationwide salesforce that grew product sales to more than $1.5 billion annually. Before Salix, Mr. Plesha was a Regional Sales Manager for Oclassen Dermatologics, a division of Watson Laboratories, and in commercial roles of increasing responsibility at Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Plesha earned a BA in Pre-Medicine and Pre-Medical Studies at DePauw University and pursued graduate studies in Dentistry at Indiana University Dental School.

Robert H. Dworkin received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD from Harvard University. He is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Neurology, and Psychiatry and Professor in the Center for Health + Technology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr. Dworkin is Director of the Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION) public-private partnership with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a Special Government Employee of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He is an Associate Editor of Pain and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Canadian Journal of Pain and the Journal of Pain. Dr. Dworkin’s major research interests are (1) methodologic aspects of analgesic clinical trials and (2) treatment and prevention of chronic and acute neuropathic and musculoskeletal pain. The primary focus of his current research involves the identification of factors that increase the assay sensitivity of clinical trials to detect differences between an active and a placebo control or comparison treatment. In ongoing studies, he and his colleagues are examining the relationships between clinical trial results and their research designs, patient characteristics, statistical methods, and outcome measures.