Michael Thurn
Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer Neurizon
Dr Michael Thurn brings broad experience in drug discovery, development, regulation and commercialisation, acquired through leadership roles in research organisations and industry, including early-stage, fastgrowing, private and publicly listed biotechnology companies. His previous responsibilities have included leading a variety of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lnvestigational New Drug (IND) applications across a range of therapeutic areas and the evaluation of drugs and vaccines for registration in Australia as a part of the Drug Safety Evaluation Branch (DSEB) of the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA).
Michael has also been responsible for the execution of Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials and business development activities across animal and human health products. He possesses strong entrepreneurial, leadership and management skills that have seen him achieve outstanding results over a 25 year career in the biotechnology industry, including co-founding MARPTherapeutics and roles with Botanix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:BOT), Mimetica, Spinifex Pharmaceuticals, Cytopia, Xenome and Novogen. During this time, Dr Thurn has gained Australian and US capital markets exposure and has successfully accessed funding through private and public channels, partnerships, and non-dilutive means.
Seminars
- The evolving understanding of TDP-43 pathology in ALS and how insights into protein aggregation and neuronal stress informed the development rationale for NUZ-001
- Preclinical and early translational findings indicating that NUZ-001 functions as a stress-adaptive modulator, supporting cellular protein quality-control processes, including proteasomal function and autophagy, to reduce neuronal stress associated with aggregated proteins such as TDP-43
- Clinical development of NUZ-001 within the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial, with discussion of the trial structure, rationale for the adaptive platform design, and how such approaches support efficient evaluation of investigational therapies in ALS
- Interpreting preliminary clinical results to date and the role of the open-label extension in strengthening the evidence base for therapeutic effectiveness
- Upcoming development milestones and data readouts, and how trial design considerations, biomarker strategy, and data maturity shape confidence in signal detection for diseasemodifying ALS therapies
