Dr. Crooke is the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of N-Lorem Foundation. He’s also the founder and executive chairman of the board of directors for Ionis Pharmaceuticals, the leader in RNA-targeted therapeutics. Under his leadership of Ionis, he pioneered the development of the revolutionary antisense technology platform and created one of the largest, most advanced pipelines in the biotechnology industry. Today, Ionis has more than 40 medicines in development.
Prior to founding Ionis, Dr. Crooke was head of R&D at SmithKline, where he was involved in commercializing numerous drugs in broad therapeutic areas and later assumed responsibility for worldwide R&D at SmithKline Beckman. At Bristol-Myers, he established the first broad anticancer program, bringing nine drugs to the market in five years.
He has led the development of more than 20 marketed drugs and supported the creation and growth of several companies based on Ionis’ antisense technology.
Commercialization of SPINRAZA® (nusinersen), the global foundation of care treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, and TEGSEDI™ (inotersen), the world’s first RNA-targeting subcutaneous injection to treat polyneuropathy caused by hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR) in adults, are recent examples of Ionis’ transformational therapies being delivered to patients in need.
Dr. Crooke is a recipient of the Massry Prize, recognizing his pioneering work in RNA targeted therapeutics, the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Chemical Society’s E.B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances, the Prix Galien Best Biotechnology Award for Spinraza, the Scrip Lifetime Achievement Award, and BIO’s Helix Award for the most important innovation, the Prix Galien Best Biotechnology Award for Tegsedi, and other awards.
Dr. Crooke received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees and house staff training at Baylor College of Medicine and has been an active scientist throughout his career. He has published nearly 500 scientific publications, edited more than 20 books, and has numerous patents.
