Mohamed A. Genead

Dr. Genead is an ophthalmologist, serial life-sciences entrepreneur and a global executive and senior leader with over 19 years’ experience in Ophthalmology research and development. He is both a retina specialist and clinical investigator with a proven record of success in developing and launching global ophthalmic products in US and Ex-US markets. He is a co-founder of two ophthalmics companies and advisor/consultant to many biotech companies and healthcare venture firms. Dr. Genead was instrumental in raising over $400 million in venture and institutional capital for several early phase biotech companies.

Dr. Genead served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice-President for GenSight Biologics, a publicly traded company, where he led the clinical development and Medical affairs organization in launching multiple phase I-III trials leveraging a disruptive ocular gene therapy and optogenetics platforms for patients with ocular degenerative diseases. Prior to GenSight, Dr. Genead led Biogen’s Ophthalmology and Ocular gene therapy franchise in collaborations with Dr. Jean Bennett, MD, PhD at University of Pennsylvania (Inventor of Gene therapy [Luxturna] for LCA scientific foundation for Spark Therapeutics) and AGTC partnerships in the execution of multiple retina gene therapy programs intended for regulatory approvals of ophthalmic gene therapy products.

Prior to joining Biogen, Dr. Genead was Executive Medical Director at Allegro Ophthalmics, where he led the global clinical development, translational, and medical teams using an anti-integrin (risuteganib) platform for patients with vitreoretinal diseases in late-development clinical trials (neovascular age-related macular degeneration [AMD], diabetic macular edema [DME], and Posterior Vitreous Detachment [PVD]).

Prior to joining Allegro, Dr. Genead was Global Medical Director and Clinical Team Lead at Allergan, where he led global teams in multiple Tier-1 programs, ranging from early proof of concept to late registration clinical development in the area of ophthalmology/retina therapeutics, such as Abicipar Pegol (DARPins), a novel anti-vascular endothelial growth factor for neovascular AMD and DME, and Brimonidine DDS implants for geographic atrophy. In addition, he served as a subject matter and translational medicine expert on retina therapeutics and discovery research. In addition, Dr. Genead was a key member of the ophthalmology due-diligence and external licensing core teams.

Before joining Allergan, Dr. Genead spent years in academic medicine serving as physician-scientist, co-director of center of Retina Degenerative Diseases and as an Investigator in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, at the University of Illinois in Chicago. His area of academic interest focused on novel retinal therapeutics ranging from ocular gene therapy to retina regenerative stem-cell therapies for orphan retina diseases such as Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa. His team pioneered the use of topical eye drops for treatment of macular edema associated with retinal dystrophies. He discovered a new gene mutation in patients afflicted with Leber’s congenital amaurosis in collaboration with researchers at McGill University.

He is a member of numerous professional and honorary societies, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, American Society of Cell & Gene Therapy, and International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision. He was the primary and key author for numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts in high impact factor scientific journals and has made over 60 national and international presentations, focusing on ophthalmic clinical research and novel therapeutics.

Dr. Genead completed his vitreoretinal fellowship at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences of the University of Illinois in Chicago, and a Retina research fellowship at Medical College of Wisconsin.