Up Close With Joseph Boorady, OD

You’ve had an eclectic career in eye care. Please tell us about the different phases of your professional life and what’s led you to try on so many different hats.

Eye care is the only job I’ve ever known, and it continues to stretch me in unexpected ways. Growing up, I worked alongside my uncle and father in the family optometry practice and learned to do refractions by the time I was 13. I bought the practice after optometry school and, together with my wife Theresa (also an optometrist), expanded it to several locations. When health care reform began picking up in the early ‘90s, I started an eye care network with other doctors to contract as one entity for managed care. From there, I was tapped to lead SUNY College of Optometry’s first managed care department, its continuing education office, and, eventually, its clinical affairs organization. When my entrepreneurial spirit surged again, I joined the animation tech startup Eyemaginations (now Rendia). After that I joined Carl Zeiss Meditec to try my hand in industry. There I gained new experiences overseeing sales and marketing for ophthalmology and other specialty product areas before the startup world beckoned again. In my role as CEO of TearScience, I delved deeper into venture capital, fundraising, mergers and acquisitions, and board leadership. After 3 years of exponential growth, Johnson & Johnson (J & J) Vision came knocking on TearScience’s door. Since the close of the acquisition in 2017, I’ve been leading J & J Vision’s ocular surface disease (OSD) strategy and sales.

What is your proudest accomplishment?

If I had to choose just one, it’s my work in the OSD category, specifically with meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), the leading cause of dry eye. When I stepped in to lead TearScience, we were aware of the high level of patient need in that space, and we set out to create an entirely new standard of care. Our technology, LipiFlow, was the first FDA-approved treatment for MGD, and it is backed by an extensive study portfolio with strong clinical results and exclusive automated technology.

What is the legacy you hope to leave behind in the ophthalmic industry?

I want to leave a legacy of transforming the standard of care with new technologies and helping make those treatments accessible to more people. I’ve been committed to this in the MGD space for some time now. The J & J Vision team has been working hard to find ways to leverage the enterprise, its expertise and scale, to offer LipiFlow at a lower price point. In February, we announced a price reduction on our disposable activator, which I hope will begin to change the trajectory of care for MGD.

Where do you see the industry heading in the next 10 years?

With the growing demands of our digital world and the aging population, we are witnessing increased prevalence of many eye conditions across a patient’s lifetime, so it’s up to all of us to advocate for greater public health efforts to protect eyesight. I also believe we’ll see the premium segments (premium IOLs, microinvasive glaucoma surgery procedures) grow, with a strong focus on improving clinical outcomes to greatly enhance quality of life for patients.

What tips do you have for surviving the stress of daily life?

One word: resilience. I was introduced to this concept by the Human Performance Institute, a J & J program. It teaches that stress is good for you and a normal part of life, as is recovery. Unless you balance the stress with recovery, you suffer the side effects of a stressful life. Each day I purposely balance stress by using recovery tools such as regular exercise and brief meditation. Reflection helps me become an even better leader of others, which is important to me.