The following transcript has been edited for clarity.
Diana V. Do, MD: Today I'm joined by a leader in retina, Lawrence J. Singerman, MD, FACS. We’re at Clinical Trials at the Summit, where all of these leaders and industry partners are together. What excites you and what data is compelling?
Lawrence J. Singerman, MD, FACS: First of all, I think the overall meeting is very, very impressive. I congratulate the organizers, Arshad M. Khanani, MD, Peter Kaiser, MD, and Jeff Heier, MD. They’ve done an exceptional job. The program is 4-minute presentations, and that enabled them to get a lot of information into a short meeting. And it’s really been fantastic, pacesetting material. Very exciting material. And a lot of very talented people are here, and they’re collaborating on this.
Dr. Do: You’ve been such a leader in retinal clinical trials. What advice would you give to young retinal physicians who are aspiring to be like you? What key advice would you give them?
Dr. Singerman: One thing that came up in a meeting we just had with our doctors—I was on my own for 10 years, but now I have 17 retina doctors and an 18th will be joining in the next couple of months. We were talking about my talk here, which is on geographic atrophy. [Editor’s note: at Clinical Trials at the Summit, Dr. Singerman presented on “Five-Year Learnings from the Pegcetacoplan Clinical Program.”] I explained we were in all the studies [phase 2 FILLY, phase 3 OAKS and DERBY, and the GALE extension study]. I was a principal investigator in the studies and because of that, we did see that we were doing well with these patients—pegcetacoplan (Syfovre; Apellis Pharmaceuticals) was helping the patients. So we started doing injections earlier than other people. And what I will be presenting here is the 5-year result of [the pegcetacoplan program]. It’s obvious that the results keep getting better if you start early and you maintain the treatment than if you started later, as in the crossover group, the sham to crossover groups.
So I made the point to my partners that because we were in the studies, we had the privilege of starting earlier than most, because we understood that this drug was helping. And even for a great drug, sometimes it will take a few years before the community starts to get behind it.
Dr. Do: Well, you’ve always been a leader. Thank you so much for sharing your advice and guidance, Larry.
Dr. Singerman: My privilege. RP
