Thank you The Healthcare Technology Report for recognizing our Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder Dr. Shankar Musunuri and his relentless pursuit to fight blindness diseases with Ocugen’s novel modifier gene therapy platform! #GeneTherapy #BlindnessDiseases #RetinitisPigmentosa
Ocugen seeks its One Shining Moment This March, you’re likely to see college basketball players take some hugely important deep shots as they vie for the title of NCAA champion. None of them will likely compare to that of Shankar Musunuri, PhD, MBA Co-Founder and CEO of Ocugen: He wants nothing less to eliminate blindness – and his shot is looking good. Musunuri, who holds a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, both March Madness powerhouses, started Ocugen in 2013 and has been CEO since 2015 after serving as Founder and CEO of Nuron Biotech. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at Pfizer, where he played a key role as Global Operations Team Leader for the most successful launch in vaccine history, Prevnar 13. That experience has shaped his work on OCU400, a drug designed to cure multiple ailments using a gene-agnostic gene modifier rather. While there is a drug, Luxturna, to treat specific gene mutations, its cost is extreme and its potential patient base is comparatively small: OCU400 could serve a population 150 times larger. Musunuri has called it “something nobody has ever done before,” and it’s on the precipice of becoming a reality. Right now, OCU400 is on pace to be released in the U.S. and Europe in 2027, toward which Ocugen is working, Musunuri said. It is currently in a Phase 3 trial, moving closer and closer to the market like a Cinderella team moving through the NCAA bracket. The main difference? If OCU400 makes it, there will be thousands of people to cut down the nets.