Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. announced Board of Directors and leadership updates with the addition of Pravin U. Dugel, MD as Executive Chairman and the additions of Jeffrey S. Heier, MD, Peter K. Kaiser, MD, and Sanjay Nayak, MBBS, PhD to the Ocular management team as Chief Scientific Officer, Medical Director, and Chief Strategy Officer, respectively. The addition of these four acknowledged strategic and clinical experts puts the Company on track to be a leader in retina care for wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), diabetic retinopathy, and other retinal conditions. The Company also announced that Charles Warden has transitioned from Chairman of the Board to Lead Independent Director.

To enable full transitions to their new operating roles, Dr. Heier has resigned from his positions with the Company as a Board Director and Advisor ? Retina, and Dr. Kaiser has resigned from his position as Chief Medical Advisor ? Retina of the Company.

In addition, Peter Jarrett, PhD, has begun the new role of Chief Technical Officer. Rabia Gurses Ozden, MD, will continue in her role as Chief Medical Officer. Pravin U. Dugel, MD has held previous leadership roles including President of IVERIC Bio, Inc., Managing Partner, Retinal Consultants of Arizona and the Retinal Research Institute; Clinical Professor, USC Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; and Founding Member, Spectra Eye Institute in Sun City, Arizona.

Dr. Dugel has authored more than 200 papers and 35 book chapters, and has been invited to give named lectures at marquis medical meetings and to serve as a visiting professor at universities worldwide, including in Japan, India, Nepal, China, Malaysia, Egypt, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Canada, and Australia. He is on the editorial board of several major medical journals. Dr. Dugel is internationally recognized as a major clinical researcher and has been a principal investigator in over 100 multicenter clinical trials.

His research and educational contributions earned him the Honor Award, Senior Honor Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). He has been elected and previously served as the Retina Subspecialty Day Board Chairman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting, as a member of the Board of Directors of the largest retina society in the United States, the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS), and the largest retina society in Europe, EURETINA. Additionally, he has been elected to the Retina Society, Macula Society, and the Retina Hall of Fame.

Dr. Dugel has served as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for major companies, including Novartis, Roche, Genentech, Allergan (Abbvie), Oxurion (Thrombogenics), Oculis, and Alcon. He has consulted for over 50 companies and has previously served on the IVERIC Bio and Aerpio Therapeutics Boards of Directors. Dr. Dugel has been a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of Orbis International?s Medical Advisory Board and Medical Strategic Committee.

Orbis International is a non-profit organization focused on ophthalmology training and education in the developing world. With Orbis, Dr. Dugel travels to developing countries to teach surgical techniques to local ophthalmologists and provide free surgery. In Arizona, Dr. Dugel founded an aviation company allowing him to travel to the Navajo, Hopi and Pima Indian Reservations to treat Native American patients suffering from preventable blindness.

Dr. Dugel was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, grew up in Vienna, Austria and attended Harrow School in London, England. He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University in New York City and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was also captain of the Columbia Squash team.

He then attended the UCLA School of Medicine, completing his residency in ophthalmology at the USC Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine. Thereafter, he completed his medical retina fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and surgical retina fellowship at the USC Eye Institute, where he received both the Heed Foundation Fellowship award and Ronald G. Michels Foundation Fellowship award. Jeffrey S. Heier, MD, is and will continue to serve as the Director of the Vitreoretinal Service and Director of Retina Research at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston (OCB), one of the largest multi-specialty ophthalmology practices in the United States.

Dr. Heier served as Co-President & Medical Director of OCB from 2016-2020. Dr. Heier is the Immediate Past President of the Retina Society and served as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Society of Retina Specialists from 2016 to February 2024. He is the Past President of the New England Ophthalmological Society and a member of the Macula Society.

Dr. Heier is one of the leading retinal clinical researchers in the country for new treatments in exudative and non-exudative macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, venous occlusive disease, vitreoretinal surgical techniques and instrumentation, and diagnostic imaging of the retina. He has served as one of the national or international lead investigators on numerous clinical trial programs, including the Phase 3 trials of pegcetacoplan for advanced dry AMD, aflibercept and ranibizumab for neovascular AMD, and the dexamethasone implant for retinal venous occlusive disease. Dr. Heier serves as the chair of multiple scientific advisory boards and steering committees focusing on study design, outcomes analysis, and implementation of new agents into clinical practice.

Dr. Heier has served as the Principal Investigator in more than 200 clinical trials. He lectures nationally and internationally, and has authored over 140 peer-reviewed works. Dr. Heier has received the Life Achievement Honor Award, The Secretariat Award, The Senior Achievement Award, and the Honor Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and The Presidential Honor Award, The Senior Honor Award, and the Honor Award from the American Society of Retina Specialists.

Dr. Heier was selected as a charter inductee of the Retina Hall of Fame in 2017. Dr. Heier received his medical degree from Boston University, completed an internship and residency at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, and a vitreoretinal fellowship at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston/Tufts School of Medicine. He served as a physician in a Combat Support Hospital in the Persian Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star.

Peter K. Kaiser, MD, was appointed as a Staff member of the vitreoretinal faculty of the Cole Eye Institute at Cleveland Clinic in 1997, where he now holds the Chaney Family Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology Research and will continue to serve as Professor of Ophthalmology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.