BS 1969 (U. of Missouri – St. Louis), Ph.D. 1976 (U. of Wisconsin – Madison)
Gary S. Jacob is currently Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of SynergyPharmaceuticals Inc., a Nasdaq-listed public biopharmaceutical company located in New York, NY that focuses on the development of drugs to treat gastrointestinal disorders and diseases.
Between May 2013 and March 2014, Dr. Jacob served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Synergy’s previously wholly-owned subsidiary, ContraVirPharmaceuticals, Inc., which became a separate public company in February 2014, and is focused on antiviral drug development. Dr. Jacob resigned as Chief Executive Officer on March 20, 2014, continuing as Chairman of the Board of ContraVir.
Dr. Jacob served as Chief Executive Officer of Callisto Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from May 2003 until January 2013 and a director from October 2004 until January 2013. Dr. Jacob currently also serves as a director of Trovagene, Inc., a urine-based molecular diagnostic Nasdaq-listed public company located in San Diego, CA.
Dr. Jacob has over twenty-five years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries across multiple disciplines including research & development, operations and business development. Prior to 1999, Dr. Jacob served as a Monsanto ScienceFellow, specializing in the field of glycobiology, and from 1997 to 1998 was Director of Functional Genomics, Corporate Science & Technology, at Monsanto Company. Dr. Jacob also served from 1990 to 1997 as Director of Glycobiology at G.D. Searle Pharmaceuticals Inc.During the period of 1986 to 1990, he was Manager of the G.D. Searle Glycobiology Group at Oxford University, England.
After completing his BS in Chemistry from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, he completed a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976, and then was a postdoctoral fellow at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY prior to joining the Monsanto Company in 1979.
