Executive Board
Martin Tolar, MD, PhD
Dr. Tolar serves as Founder, President & CEO of Alzheon. Prior to founding Alzheon in June 2013, Dr. Tolar held executive positions in several life sciences companies, where he has successfully established and grew 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 pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, and published many scientific publications in the areas 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, the CERGE-EI Foundation, and Advance Healthcare Management Institute.
In 2024, Dr. Tolar received the Eliška and Zdeněk Strmiska Award from the Alzheimer’s Foundation for significant contribution towards the research and treatment of Alzheimer´s disease and donated the cash prize to the INDRC institute. In 2021, Dr. Tolar received the Czech Laurels Award from the Czech Chamber of Commerce in recognition of his leadership in Alzheimer disease therapeutics, as well as clinical, scientific, and business projects in the Czech Republic. The Czech Chamber of Commerce is the largest and the most representative business association in the Czech Republic. 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.
John Hey, PhD
John Hey, PhD
Dr. Hey serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Alzheon. Dr. Hey brings more than 20 years of drug discovery & development experience in biotechnology & pharmaceutical drug development. He held senior leadership positions in drug development at biotechnology companies including CoMentis and NormOxys, focusing on Alzheimer’s disease & oncology. As Senior Vice President of Discovery & Preclinical Drug Development at CoMentis, he served as the pivotal senior leader and drug development officer responsible for the beta-secretase inhibitor drug development program for Alzheimer’s disease. In this role, he built a drug discovery and drug development team optimization facility, and led a team of over 25 scientists responsible for all key aspects of early drug development, including PK/PD, biochemistry, in vitro and in vivo pharmacology, in vitro and in vivo ADME, bioanalytical, preclinical safety, safety pharmacology, translational medicine, medicinal chemistry and early clinical development. This work culminated in the first clinically tested beta-secretase candidate and a collaboration with a potential value of $1.1 billion with Astellas Pharma in 2008.
Prior to his tenure at CoMentis, he spent 18 years at the Schering-Plough Research Institute leading discovery, preclinical & early clinical development teams in therapeutic areas through Phase 2 development. During this time, he was also a divisional leader, managing preclinical discovery, lead optimization, early development activities, and strategic planning for over 50 scientists. He has developed new chemical entities (NCEs) in multiple therapeutic areas and has been responsible for the discovery & development of over 20 NCEs, including several that have advanced to the NDA stage & approval. He had additional direct experience supporting Phase 3 and Phase 4 programs for Schering-Plough’s respiratory disease franchise portfolio, including Claritin®/Clarinex®, Asmanex® and Nasonex®.
Dr. Hey holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and authored over 145 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Pavel Hroboň, MD, MS
Pavel Hroboň, MD, MS
Physician and economist graduated from 2nd Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and from School of Public Health at Harvard University in the USA.
Pavel Hroboň worked as Deputy Minister of Health responsible for health insurance, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Previously, he was employed by the General Health Insurance Company of the Czech Republic as an advisor and director of strategy. He also gained experience as a consultant for McKinsey&Company. After graduation, he worked for several years as a physician specializing in the area of general internal medicine. He is the founder of the Advance Healthcare Management Institute and works at the Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University, Czech Republic.
His work and research interest include health systems reforms, changes in funding and provision of health services required by the spread of chronic diseases, competition of payers and risk-adjustment systems, long-term care, reimbursement of pharmaceuticals, health technology assessment, the impact of reimbursement mechanisms on provider behaviour, and strategies of health insurers and providers.
Milan Kulhánek
Milan Kulhánek
Milan Kulhánek is a Partner in the Consulting function of the Deloitte Czech Republic leading the Strategy and Operations advisory team. His role is to manage client expectations, develop strategic partnerships, ensure optimal project business and IT aspects alignment, identify project risks and find appropriate solutions. He sees business transition as a natural part of projects.
He leads a team specialised in advisory services focusing on the areas of operational optimisation, automation and change management. A significant part of his work is dealing with Robotics Process Automation (RPA) and Cognitive Automation, Shared Services Centres and also with Strategic HR.
Milan Kulhánek is a manager with a strong combination of leadership, strategic skills, deep banking and insurance knowledge, and a strong insight into the fields of telecommunications, energy and utilities. He brings in more than fifteen years of experience in the areas of strategy, change management, business development and the implementation of comprehensive projects impacting business, processes and IT.
Prof. Ing. Vladimír Mařík, DSc
Prof. Ing. Vladimír Mařík, DSc
Vladimír Mařík received his PhD. in 1979 and DrSc. degree in 1989 from the Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague, Czech Republic.
For more than 15 years he acted as the managing director of the Rockwell Automation Research Center, Prague. His professional interests include distributed AI, multi-agent systems, knowledge-based systems, machine learning, planning and scheduling for manufacturing. He acted as the Head of the Department of Cybernetics, CTU in the years 1999-2013. He is the founder and Scientific Director of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics, CTU in Prague. He’s been a member of the R&D&I Council of the Czech Republic (2011-2015 and since 2018). He is co-author of the National Initiative for Industry 4.0 of the Czech Republic and a Board member of AICZECHIA, the Czech AI Community Network. He is co-author, principal investigator and coordinator of the Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production (RICAIP) since 2017 (approx. € 50M).
He is the author of more than 160 articles/conference papers, co-editor of 17 books, co-author of 5 granted patents. He acted as coordinator of other projects in AI and industrial robotics, such as the National Competence Centre on Cybernetics and AI (TA CR, € 8M).
He received the Medal of Merit for service to the Czech Republic in the area of science by the President of the Czech Republic (2017), the Cross of Honour for Science and Art awarded by the President of Austria (2003), Honoris Causa doctorate (dr.h.c.) from the Brno University of Technology (2003), top Czech science award Česká Hlava – Invention (2010). He acted as Editor-in-chief of IEEE SMC Part C (2005-2013), Board member of IEEE SMC (2005 to present), has received the IEEE SMC Outstanding Contribution Award (2012) and has been Vice-president of IEEE SMC (2013 to present).
Prof. Ing. Vaclav Snasel
Prof. Vaclav Snasel
Vaclav Snasel’s research and development experience include over 30 years in the Industry and Academia. He works in a multi-disciplinary environment involving Industry 4.0, Energy 4.0, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Information Retrieval, Deep Learning, Data Compression, Machine Intelligence, Neural Network, nature, Bio-inspired computing, Data Mining, and applied to various real-world problems.
He has given more than 17 plenary lectures and conference tutorials in these areas. In addition, he has authored/co-authored several refereed journal/conference papers and book chapters. He has published more than 700 papers; ORCID:http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9600-8319 (520+ papers are recorded at Web of Science h-index 25 ResearcherID: B-8094-2009; 650+ papers are recorded at SCOPUS h-index 31; 10000+ citations at Google Scholar and h-index 43).
Currently, he serves as the Rector of VSB -Technical University of Ostrava.
Ing. Jaroslav Lískovec
Ing. Jaroslav Lískovec
Jaroslav Lískovec graduated in 2004 from the Brno University of Technology in Economics and Management. Since 2018 he has been the Director of the National Center of Industry 4.0 which operates within the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He serves as an advisor on innovation, investment and economic strategy to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic.
Prior to that, he worked as a Director of the Strategy Section of the state-owned company National Agency for Communication and Information Technologies (NAKIT). He had experience with the preparation and construction of industrial zones within CzechInvest, e.g. the largest industrial zone TRIANGLE in the Czech Republic (EUR 100 mil). He also worked as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic in the area of infrastructure building for high-speed internet for digitization, eGovernment and Industry 4.0. Jaroslav Liskovec acts as the President and co-founder of the TRIX Connection company.
Ing. Eva Troppová, PhD
Ing. Eva Troppová, PhD
Eva Troppová received her PhD from the Mendel University in Brno in the field of Wood Science and Technology. After graduation in 2015, she worked as a postdoc researcher and led the laboratory of thermal properties in the Josef Ressel Research Center Brno. She was involved in several national and international projects. In 2016 she acted as the project manager for European grants at the CEITEC Brno University of Technology. In 2017 she joined the Project Management Office of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. As the project manager, she is responsible for the preparation and implementation of international grants, e.g. the successful H2020 Teaming project RICAIP (Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production, € 50M). She is the executive director of the creative studio VisionBase focused on branding and advertising.
Vít Dočkal, PhD
Vít Dočkal, PhD
Vít Dočkal graduated in 2006 from the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University with two doctoral degrees from the Department of Political Science, and International Relations and European Studies.
In the years of 2009 – 2013 he had been leading the ICRC Project Management Office at St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno – a large R&D infrastructure funded by € 180M from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and the state funds. Since 2013 he works as the professional project manager at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC CTU). As the head of the Project Management Office (2013 – 2021), he was responsible for the strategic project management agenda of € 100M+.
He led the project team during the preparation of the EDS Grant for the new CIIRC facility, OP RDE projects (Excellent Research Teams call of the ESIF-Operational Programme Research, Development and Education) and successful H2020 Teaming project RICAIP (Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production, € 50M). Vít Dočkal is the head of the CLAIRE Prague Office, closely involved in CLAIRE’s engagement with industry and in supporting the AI ecosystem in Central and Eastern Europe. He is also co-founder of the start-up company TRIX Connections.
