Clearside Biomedical, Inc.  announced that Victor Chong, M.D., MBA was appointed Chief Medical Officer on March 14, 2024. Dr. Chong is a board-certified retinal specialist with more than 25 years of experience as a retinal physician and navigating all phases of ophthalmic drug development. Dr. Chong served most recently as VP, Global Head of Retina DAS at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Innovative Medicine (formerly Janssen), where he oversaw strategic decisions from preclinical to late clinical development, business development and external innovation, and coordination with the commercial organization.

Prior to J&J, he was Global Head of Medicine, Retinal Health at Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), where he provided the clinical link in discovery and translational medicine and was responsible for clinical development and medical affairs in ophthalmology. His role at BI included moving 11 molecules into clinical development, covering five indications, including wet AMD, DME, DR, diabetic macular ischemia (DMI), and geographic atrophy. His laboratory was the first to link systemic complement activation, in particular C3, to AMD and he has published over 150 peer-reviewed publications.

Previously, Dr. Chong served as Head of Department and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon of Oxford Eye Hospital, a part of the Oxford University Hospitals. He was also Co-director of Ophthalmic Education at Oxford University. Dr. Chong graduated from the University of Glasgow Medical School (MBChB) with the Neil Arnott Prize, finished his ophthalmic training at Moorfields Eye Hospital and completed a retinal fellowship at the Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital, London.

He also completed a postdoctoral cell biology fellowship at the University of Iowa. Dr. Chong holds designations as a Fellow of Royal College of Ophthalmologists (FRCOphth), and Fellow of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (FHKAM in Ophthalmology). He earned an M.D. by research in Ophthalmology from King?s College, an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology and a MPhil in Cell Biology and Pathology from University College London.