“The pathway to progress is not always a straight line,” noted Allen C. Ho, MD, during an Eyecelerator 2024 program titled “The Power of Innovation and Perseverance.” During that session in Chicago, Dr. Ho and Robert L. Avery, MD, presented the inaugural Eyecelerator Innovation Award to Regeneron co-founders Leonard Schleifer, MD, PhD, and George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD.
Dr. Schleifer described how he recruited Dr. Yancopoulos, a highly regarded molecular biologist, to join him when starting Regeneron in the late 1980s. Together, they described the company’s ups and downs over 3 decades as they worked to develop Eylea (aflibercept), which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) in 2011 and for other indications later. “We literally had 25 straight years of losing money before we became an overnight success,” commented Dr. Schleifer.
Dr. Yancopoulos noted that aflibercept (then called VEGF-Trap) was initially developed under a research partnership with Proctor & Gamble (P&G) in the mid-1990s. Because P&G did not believe sales of the drug would be significant, it did not support putting VEGF-Trap in clinical trials, either for retinal diseases or for cancer. After 5 years, P&G allowed the rights to revert to Regeneron, and the company then struggled for another 5 years to find another partner that would help to fund the development program. Their persistence was ultimately validated, as Eylea would become one of the most successful drug launches in biotech history. (According to company data, sales of Eylea and Eylea HD are projected to exceed $6 billion in 2024.)
Regeneron’s philosophy is to take as many “shots on goal” as possible to increase the chances that the company will develop useful and successful products, explained Dr. Yancopoulos. “For us, it’s about coming up with innovative breakthrough technologies and platforms that nobody else has imagined, that don’t exist, that could give us more shots on goal,” he said.
Following the award presentation, a larger panel discussed innovation and perseverance, offering tips and suggestions from their own career experiences. In addition to Drs. Schleifer and Yancopoulos, the panel included Pravin Dugel, MD; Cedric Francois, MD, PhD; David Guyer, MD; and Dan Schwartz, MD.
Dr. Schwartz spoke about the development of the Light Adjustable Lens (LAL), which was created with the assistance of the late Nobel laureate Robert Grubbs, PhD, of the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Grubbs’s research team at Caltech solved many of the challenges the LAL technology posed. “I recognized that the partnership between a physician, who recognizes a clinical need and can drive that need keeping in mind all the clinical parameters, combined with a terrific scientist who is committed to seeing the project through and all the resources that they can bring, is a very interesting formula for developing new technology,” Dr. Schwartz said. He advised innovators to “do as much as you can in the university setting before you move off campus to start a company, because you have these incredible resources.”
Dr. Francois, a cofounder of Apellis Pharmaceuticals and the company’s president and CEO, spoke about the importance of maintaining balance. He advised the audience not to get too excited over good results, or down over disappointments. Surrounding yourself with other talented scientists and providing the resources for them to complete their work is necessary to achieve goals, he observed. “When you accomplish something like a drug approval, it’s a really great and joyful moment,” he said. “But then you realize that the true joy is the process of getting there. It is every step along the way. It's always a little bit anticlimactic to actually get to the final step, but along the way you work with these amazing people who are smart and share your passion and drive. And this circle is one of the reasons that you’re getting this accomplished.” RP
