Disarm Therapeutics Names Alvin Shih as President and CEO

Disarm Therapeutics, which is developing a new class of disease-modifying therapeutics for neurological disease, said it appointed Alvin Shih as president and CEO.

Shih most recently served as CEO of Enzyvant Therapeutics, where he led the effort to file for regulatory approval of RVT-802, a regenerative tissue-based therapy for the rare condition complete DiGeorge Anomaly.

Disarm is developing therapies that target axonal degeneration, which underlies a broad range of diseases of the central, ocular, and peripheral nervous systems. The company is developing drugs that inhibit SARM1, a protein that its scientific founders identified as a central driver of degeneration of axons. Axons are nerve fibers that play vital roles throughout the nervous system. They serve as transmission lines between neurons and carry signals across distances as long as a meter.

“Disarm’s work to understand and modulate SARM1, the central driver of axonal degeneration, has the potential to impact a broad range of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, ALS, and peripheral neuropathies,” said Shih.

Shih has more than 15 years of clinical and drug development experience and has held leadership roles advancing multiple therapeutic modalities across the full spectrum of development, from early-stage discovery and translational work to late-stage clinical and post-marketing efforts.

Prior to serving as CEO of Enzyvant, Shih was executive vice president and head of R&D at Retrophin, where he managed a diverse pipeline encompassing rare neurological and renal diseases.

Earlier in his career, Shih was a founding member of the Pfizer Rare Disease Research Unit in Cambridge, Mass. Prior to joining Pfizer, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and L.E.K. Consulting.

He holds an M.D. from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a member of the medical and scientific advisory board of Global Genes, publisher of Rare Daily.

Photo: Alvin Shih as president and CEO of Disarm Therapeutics

Author: Rare Daily Staff