Hutchings Steps Down as CEO of Cortex

Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc., a small firm that is researching drugs to prevent brain degeneration from aging and strokes, said Tuesday that its chief executive officer and president, Dr. Harold Hutchings, has resigned for undisclosed reasons.

Company officials said that as part of a negotiated settlement they would not discuss Hutchings’ departure. Hutchings, 55, the company’s first employee and its president since June, 1988, will continue as a member of the firm’s board of directors.

Scott Hagan, the company’s vice president of finance and administration, acknowledged that Hutchings’ affiliation with Cortex had been “a bit of a mismatch.” He said Dr. Raymond Bartus, co-founder, chief scientific officer and a director of Cortex, will serve as interim president while the company board of directors searches for a permanent replacement.

Reached at his home in Newport Beach, Hutchings denied that he had any disagreement with other Cortex officials and said he was proud to have helped to build Cortex “from scratch.” Hutchings, a 25-year veteran in the pharmaceutical industry, plans to become a consultant in the Pacific Northwest, closer to his daughters, who live near Vancouver, Canada.

Cortex was founded in February, 1987, by three internationally known brain researchers at UC Irvine.

Over the years, the company has made some changes in its business strategy. In the fall of 1988, Hutchings estimated that within six months the company would hit the market with an odor identification test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive deterioration of the brain associated with aging.

However, to date the company has no marketable products. Hutchings said that development of a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s ran into difficulties in clinical testing.