Opportunities in the Ophthalmic Drug and Device Development Space w/ George MacGrath, via NYSE

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies developing ophthalmology products have their eye on Lexitas Pharma Services for clinical trial services.

Hear from our own CEO George Magrath about the opportunities he sees coming out in the ophthalmic drug and device development space.

Transcript:

I’m Judy Shaw for NYSC floor Talk joining me today is George Magrath he is CEO at Lexitas Pharma Services George it’s wonderful to have you here thanks for joining me

Thank you for having us

My pleasure now before we get started just quick note to viewers this interview is for informational purposes only the NYSC doesn’t recommend any Investments or investment strategies all right so George tell me about lexitas pharma Services

Lexitas pharma Services is a niche provider of pharmaceutical services to ophthalmology companies so our job our mission in life is to help companies get ophthalmology products approved

So George not only are you CEO of the company but you’re also a practicing ophthalmologist so Tony how does that direct connection with patients help you drive the direction of Lexitas

Yeah well so I’ve been on I’ve been on all aspects of drug development and really my goal and my mission is is truly to try to help get new medicines to patients that have vision problems and I see that every day in my in my clinical practice or when I do clinical practice which has been cut back at this point but uh but really it started out as uh as an equity analyst morphed into developing some products and now I’m at Lexitas Pharma Services where it’s really been magnified and we get the help you know at any one time 30 to 40 fantastic companies that are that are developing in our area

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Falls to me to knee surgery that’s infrequent but that has happened before yes I don’t want to miss that meeting

All right so George tell me what are you seeing in terms of investments in the Life Sciences space especially when it comes to funding new trials

Yeah absolutely so you know it has been a rocky year and a half or so for for small biotech funding um we have seen larger companies continuing to develop and we’re starting to see the smaller companies start to get some momentum and begin to be funded again so we’re really starting to come out of that and it’s and we’re seeing that at lexitas as our business is picking up and as we’re developing more and more new science um I think that the last couple years has been good for the industry because it really has focused a lot of great talent a lot of great teams on great science and so it really has it really has allocated the capital that’s available to some great projects and as we’re starting to see that expand and those projects progress I think we’re going to see great things for patients in the near future

All right and tell me what advice do you have for Pharma companies looking for ACR or cro partner to manage their trials

Oh well so the most important thing is that as the industry has moved towards more personalized medicine more complex treatments really the trial design and complexity has increased as well we also worry a lot about diversity and inclusion in clinical trials and and a lot of a lot of other aspects of doing very robust studies to prove whether or not a drug is safe and then effective and so really a niche provider and and somebody who truly understands the space is what I would suggest companies looking for because because it really is dependent on intimate knowledge of the disease State the patients are trying to to help and the drugs you’re trying to treat to progress

All right and finally tell me what are some of the big opportunities that you see coming out in the ophthalmolic drug and device development space in the next few years

Oh it’s really exciting so we’re seeing we’re seeing a really Renaissance and gene therapy and cell therapy um and it’s it’s truly transformational so in Ophthalmology we were really we were really a blessed field because we had the first approved gene therapy with the uh with Lux Turner which was for a really debilitating disease that caused blindness um and and we’ve seen a lot of follow-on with that and we’ve seen a lot of work in the geographic atrophy space which is macular degeneration which is the leading cause of blindness in um in in the elderly in the United States we’re seeing some amazing treatments for diabetic eye disease which is the leading cause of blindness for working age adults and and so really we’re seeing a a true um Renaissance in the field where a lot of new treatments are coming about a lot of new mechanisms as as the the field has started to better understand the underlying disease a

All right well that’s great news and George it’s been wonderful to have you here thanks for joining

Oh thank you so much for having us