Susan Abushakra

Dr. Abushakra brings 15 years of neurological drug development expertise to Alzheon. Dr. Abushakra is also a co-founder of Bonti, Inc., a biotechnology company, where she has served as Chief Medical Officer since September 2015. Dr. Abushakra was most recently the Chief Medical Officer at Transition Therapeutics, and prior to that at Elan/Perrigo, where she led the development of ELND005, amyloid targeting small molecule being developed for neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease and in Down syndrome. Previously, Dr. Abushakra was Vice President of Clinical Development at Elan Corporation and Allergan, where she led several early and late-stage central nervous system and pain clinical programs, including supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) filings for Botox® in spasticity and migraine. Dr. Abushakra has extensive clinical and regulatory experience in Alzheimer’s disease drug development. As the Therapeutic Area Head at Eisai in clinical development and at Wyeth in regulatory affairs, her experience includes investigational new drug (IND) filings for novel Alzheimer’s disease candidates, as well as supplemental new drug applications (sNDAs) for Aricept® indications.

Dr. Abushakra has been a voting member of the Alzheimer’s Association Research Roundtable (AARR) for the last 10 years and has been a member of many industry working groups including the AARR, the Alzheimer’s Disease EU Task Force, the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative (API) and the Michael J. Fox Foundation LRRK2 Working Group.

Dr. Abushakra is a board-certified neurologist, having completed her residency and neuromuscular/neurophysiology specialty training at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore Maryland. She received her M.D. with distinction from the American University of Beirut Medical School, Lebanon.