Prior to founding Alzheon in June 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 led the development of human genome interpretation systems and services for academic, pharmaceutical and clinical clients, as President & CEO at NormOxys, Inc., where he built the business for novel cancer therapeutics, and as Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Business Officer at CoMentis, Inc., where he developed the first clinical-stage beta secretase inhibitor platform for Alzheimer’s disease and negotiated a collaboration with a potential value of $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.