Martin Tolar, MD, PhDFounder

United States - Cambridge, Massachusetts

Martin Tolar, MD, PhD, Founder, President & CEO at Alzheon, Inc.

Prior to founding Alzheon in 2013, Dr. Tolar has held executive positions in life sciences companies, where he has successfully established and grown new companies, business areas and product opportunities. Dr. Tolar served as President & CEO of Knome, Inc., where he pioneered human genome interpretation systems and services, as President & CEO at NormOxys, Inc., where he built and financed the business for novel cancer therapeutics, and as CSO and CBO at CoMentis, Inc., where he developed the first clinical beta secretase inhibitor platform and negotiated a landmark deal for the program for $1.1 billion with Astellas Pharma in 2008. Dr. Tolar held a variety of clinical development and business leadership positions at Pfizer, where he was instrumental in a wide range of business transactions, including acquisition of Rinat Neuroscience for $500 million in 2006, and directed programs through all stages of clinical development and FDA approval including NDA filings.

During his academic career, Dr. Tolar served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine, where he focused on movement disorders. Dr. Tolar trained in Neurology at the Boston Medical Center, received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience for his work on the role of apolipoprotein E in Alzheimer’s disease, and published many scientific publications in the area of neuroscience and neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Tolar received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague, where, as a medical student, he helped organize and lead the Velvet Revolution that toppled the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia in November 1989.

In 2021, Dr. Tolar founded the International Neurodegenerative Disorders Research Center, INDRC, a global institute applying artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions to identify and validate therapeutic interventions for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. He serves as the Chairman of the INDRC Executive Board. Dr. Tolar also serves on business and scientific boards including the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, the Alzheimer Foundation and Advance Healthcare Management Institute.

Dr. Tolar was recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the world of drug development and manufacture by The Medicine Maker Magazine’s Power Lists for 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. In 2021, Dr. Tolar received the Czech Laurels Award from the Czech Chamber of Commerce in recognition of his leadership in Alzheimer disease therapeutics.