EyePoint Pharmaceuticals Promotes Jay S. Duker, MD, to President and Chief Operating Officer

EyePoint Pharmaceuticals announced that Jay S. Duker, MD, who has served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) since November 2021, has been promoted to the additional role of President. In addition to continuing to oversee his duties as COO, in his expanded role, Dr. Duker will also oversee regulatory affairs.

“Jay has been a tremendous asset to our team since he joined as COO, and we look forward to continuing to benefit from his strong leadership in his additional role as President," Nancy Lurker, CEO of EyePoint Pharmaceuticals, said in a company news release. "Jay has helped to strengthen our organization in the past year, as we made significant progress across our pipeline of exciting and innovative ocular products, including reporting positive data for our phase 1 DAVIO trial in wet AMD and the initiation of two phase 2 trials for EYP-1901."

“It has been a privilege working with the talented team at EyePoint on our mission to bring innovative ocular therapies to patients with serious eye disorders," said Dr. Duker. "I am excited to expand my role in the company, as we advance the clinical trials of our sustained release anti-VEGF, EYP-1901, which acts through a unique mechanism of action. We hope that EYP-1901 proves to be a safe, effective, and well tolerated 6-month treatment option for patients with wet AMD and a potential 9-month treatment for those with non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy."

Prior to serving as Chief Operating Officer at EyePoint, Dr. Duker held roles at EyePoint as Chief Strategic Scientific Officer on a part-time basis beginning in 2020, after having served as an independent member of EyePoint’s Board of Directors since 2016. Previously, Dr. Duker was the Director of the New England Eye Center and Chair of Ophthalmology at Tufts Medical Center and the Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Duker also co-founded several start-ups, including Hemera Biosciences, a gene therapy company that developed an anti-complement treatment for dry macular degeneration, which was acquired by Janssen in 2020. In addition, Dr. Duker is currently the Chair of the Board of Sesen Bio, a publicly traded clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. He has published more than 300 journal articles related to ophthalmology and is co-author of "Yanoff and Duker’s Ophthalmology," an ophthalmic textbook. Dr. Duker received an AB from Harvard University and an MD from the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.