Dr. Orest Hurko is a board-certified neurologist and clinical geneticist with a distinguished career spanning more than four decades across academic medicine, biotechnology, and global pharmaceutical development. He has served in senior leadership roles at Wyeth, Pfizer, EMD Serono, GlaxoSmithKline, and multiple emerging biotechs, with a focus on neurology, neurogenetics, and rare inherited disorders.
Dr. Hurko was the founding director of the Translational Medicine Research Collaboration (TMRC), a groundbreaking public–private initiative between Wyeth and the medical schools of Scotland. At Wyeth and later Pfizer, he built and led cross-functional teams to integrate biomarkers into neurology and CNS development, including translational strategies for multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He also represented Wyeth on the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) advisory board and data committee.
Throughout his career, Dr. Hurko has contributed to over 250 scientific publications and served on numerous advisory boards, including the National Ataxia Foundation, Charcot-Marie-Tooth International, and the von Hippel–Lindau Alliance. He has been instrumental in shaping the clinical development and regulatory strategies behind several FDA- and EMA-approved therapies, including vodobatinib for Parkinson’s disease, phenobarbital for neonatal seizures, and cladribine for multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Hurko earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed advanced studies in neuroendocrinology at MIT. He previously served as Associate Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he also directed the Greenberg Center for Skeletal Dysplasias.