ATLANTA (October 3, 2023) CMT Research Foundation (CMTRF), a patient-led, non-profit focused on delivering treatments and cures for Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease*, today announced that Arthur Suckow, Ph.D. former Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of DTx Pharma, has joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
“I’m committed to supporting the CMTRF’s mission to direct more research toward the development of drugs for CMT,” says Dr. Suckow. “I will not stand down until we have approved treatments for CMT and I will continue to allocate significant amounts of time toward CMT R&D”.
One of the early programs CMTRF funded was DTx Pharma, co-founded in 2017 by Dr. Suckow, John Grundy, and Adam Pavlicek, that had developed a platform for RNA therapeutics called Fatty Acid Ligand Conjugated Oligonucleotide. CMTRF executives suggested DTx’s platform, developed for another indication, could be relevant to the delivery challenge of drugs for CMT1A. CMTRF then funded an initial project to validate that in January 2020. DTx Pharma’s lead asset, DTx-1252, is a novel, potential first-in-class candidate that boasts a robust preclinical package, demonstrating the reversal of disease in preclinical rodent models and translation to higher species with IND-enabling studies progressing well. DTx was recently acquired by Novartis for $1 billion.
Dr. Suckow plans to work independently with investors to build new companies tackling diseases with significant unmet needs. Prior to DTx, Dr. Suckow held positions at Janssen (J&J), MedImmune/AstraZeneca, and Regulus Therapeutics, leading projects across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities (small molecules, peptides, antibody conjugates and oligonucleotide therapeutics). He received his Honors B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Delaware and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego. During graduate school, he founded Synervate – a cell therapy company focused on a treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease.
“Adding Artie to the CMTRF Board is like getting the first pick in the draft. His depth of knowledge about CMT and his dedication to eradicating the disease make him the absolute first choice to help CMTRF reach its mission to end all forms of CMT,” says Patrick Livney, Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
