A man wanted for more than 20 years over a first-degree sexual assault charge was arrested in New York last week after being unmasked as a biotech executive who had built a career under a false identity. Ronald Fischer, a 70-year-old former anesthesiologist, fled the United States in 2005 just before closing arguments in his Rhode Island trial, in which he was accused of raping a woman aboard his yacht; he was convicted in absentia and has been a fugitive ever since. The case is notable because Fischer appears to have spent part of his time on the run building a legitimate-seeming career in the pharmaceutical industry under the alias Richard Graydon, raising questions about how thoroughly biotech firms vetted his credentials.

As Graydon, Fischer held senior clinical roles at several companies, including interim chief medical officer positions at Seattle's Atossa Therapeutics in 2022 and, more recently, California-based Immix Biopharma, which described him as a Stanford-trained oncologist with experience at Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Immix has since said he was terminated for reasons unrelated to his work there, and neither company appears to have verified his claimed credentials. Fischer had a prior 1994 conviction for assault and battery over a similar incident on another yacht, after which his medical licences were revoked. He was finally captured on 16 July aboard a sailing vessel on New York's East River, intercepted by US Marshals and the US Coast Guard.