Ligand to Webcast Analyst Day on June 24

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: LGND) announced today that it will webcast its Investor and Analyst Day at the Eventi hotel in New York City on June 24, 2010 from 4:15 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Eastern time (1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Pacific).

Presenters will include:

• John Higgins, President and Chief Executive Officer
• John Sharp, Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer
• Robert McKay, Associate Director of Business Development
• Syed Kazmi, PhD, Vice President of Business Development
• Nezam Afdhal, MD, Chief of Hepatology, Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston
  "Presentation on Thrombocytopenia in Hepatitis and Promacta”
• Shalender Bhasin, MD, Section Chief Endocrinology, Boston University School of Medicine
  "Overview of Muscle Disorders/Wasting and the Role for a SARM Therapeutic”

To access the webcast, please visit Presentations & Events in the Investor Relations section of the Ligand website at www.ligand.com. The webcast will be archived and available for replay for 30 days following the event.

About Ligand Pharmaceuticals

Ligand discovers and develops new drugs that address critical unmet medical needs of patients for a broad spectrum of diseases including hepatitis, muscle wasting, Alzheimer's, inflammatory diseases, anemia, COPD, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. Ligand's proprietary drug discovery and development programs are based on advanced cell-based assays, gene-expression tools, ultra-high throughput screening and one of the world's largest combinatorial chemical libraries. Ligand has strategic alliances with major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Cephalon and more than 30 programs are in various stages of development by its partners.