Dr. Neal R. Cutler is Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine / Cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the former CEO and Founder of Worldwide Clinical Trials, a global CRO that offers a full range of product development services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He held this position from 2007-2024. Dr. Cutler founded and served as president and CEO of Alamo Pharmaceuticals LLC from 2000-2006. During this time, Dr. Cutler also developed and obtained FDA approval for a new drug to treat schizophrenia, FazaClo®, which is on the market today. He successfully merged Alamo into Avanir Pharmaceuticals in 2006.
Dr. Cutler was founder and director of California Clinical Trials from 1987-1999, which was one of the largest Phase I–III clinical pharmacology and investigational sites in the United States. This was expanded into a global CRO, also named Worldwide Clinical Trials, which he successfully merged into a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group Inc.
Dr. Cutler is a board-certified psychiatrist and board-qualified in both neurology and clinical pharmacology. He worked at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over nine years and served as both the section chief for the Laboratory of Neuroscience and as deputy clinical director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). He also served as an expert to the Food and Drug Administration Division of Neuropharmacological Agents from 1981-1983. He was previously president of the American Foundation for Clinical Pharmacology and served on a special emphasis panel review committee for the National Institute on Aging for the NIH.
Dr. Cutler has been instrumental in the design and clinical development of over 300 compounds in numerous therapeutic areas, with particular expertise in central nervous system disorders. He developed the revolutionary “dynabridge” and “bridging” study methodologies, which made feasible the study of the dynamic activity of a compound in the brain and facilitated the rapid and effective development of a number of subsequent compounds.
Dr. Cutler has given several hundred international and national presentations in the fields of aging, migraine, clinical pharmacology, and drug development. He has authored over 280 publications, including 9 books on the topics of clinical pharmacology, aging, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and diabetes.