Thomas Hohman, PhD leads clinical operations at Neurotech. He comes to Neurotech with more than 30 years of experience in research and drug development of novel therapeutics for retinal diseases. Thomas earned his Ph.D. at the University of California and completed fellowships at the National Heart Blood and Lung Institute and the National Eye Institute, both part of the NIH.
Thomas began his career in drug development at Wyeth-Ayerst, where he led the aldose reductase inhibitor discovery program, advancing the clinical development of tolrestat as a treatment for diabetic neuropathy and retinopathy and progressing a second generation inhibitor, minalrestat, into a clinical proof-of-concept study. At Novartis, he was the Clinical Lead for the development of ranibizumab as a treatment for exudative AMD and diabetic macular edema (DME). As the Retina Therapeutic Area Head at Alcon, he designed and managed a natural history study of geographic atrophy (GA) and used the data to gain regulatory acceptance of a new primary endpoint for GA. In addition, he managed the preclinical and clinical evaluation of tandospirone, a serotonin 1A agonist, as a treatment for GA, and the preclinical and clinical development of a sustained release tyrosine kinase inhibitor as a treatment for diabetic macular edema (DME).
As the Vice President of Retinal Translational Medicine and Drug Discovery at Allergan, he managed the preclinical and early clinical development of abicipar pegol, an anti-VEGF biologic, as a treatment for exudative AMD, and a sustained-release formulation of brimonidine as a treatment for GA. Following his retirement, he created a consulting company that evaluates the potential for success of new therapies and provides project guidance to small and large pharmaceutical companies as well as academic laboratories focused on developing novel therapies for retinal diseases, including inherited retinal dystrophies GA, DME, neovascular AMD, macular telangiectasia, retinal fibrosis and gene therapy.