BLOG: Eye care entrepreneurs have continued success with Eyevance
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We are all intrigued with successful, driven professionals that set lofty goals and reach them. Self-described "serial entrepreneurs" and partners Jerry St. Peter and Jason Werner were fresh off their success with Sun Ophthalmics when they struck out on their own. Putting together private equity and investors, the pair launched Eyevance Pharmaceuticals in 2017 and by 2019, they had a commercial team in place with territory managers and multiple products on the market. In 2020, Eyevance was acquired by Santen thanks to the great team of people and commercial opportunities that Eyevance developed with unparalleled efficiency.
When Eyevance approached me at the company's outset, I was already familiar with Jerry and Jason from my work as a researcher and consultant for Sun Pharmaceuticals. I had long been impressed by Jerry's skills as an entrepreneur who not only has vision but knows how to get things done. Eyevance's success is due in part to its ability to stay customer-centric while growing. The group strategically sought out input from physicians across subspecialties in eye care, wanting to align with a core audience, build relationships, and understand the needs of doctors and their patients while championing innovative therapies.
Eyevance's portfolio is especially diverse for a small company, from products for rare orphan conditions, to drugs with excellent track records that are unique in their properties and delivery systems. Some of these, like Tobradex ST and Flarex, are both irrefutably great drugs that had a successful run under the Alcon brand and have now been "re-introduced" to the U.S. market. With the most recent approval of Zerviate, a drop form of oral Zyrtec, Eyevance boasts arguably a best-in-class H1 blocker indicated for ocular allergy. Available in both a multidose bottle or single-use containers, it has no muscaranic effect and therefore does not exacerbate dry eye. Additionally, the drop provides exceptional comfort thanks to its being formulated with Hydrella, a vehicle that contains glycerin and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, and has a pH of approximately 7.0.
The Santen partnership is powerful as it combines the two companies' robust pipelines and Santen’s second-to-none scientific research and development background. The integration is well underway, and you can sense the excitement from both companies. For me, it's a really small world because I'm also an investigator for Santen's glaucoma agents in development. When I saw this strategic relationship developing, I was excited to have established ties to both companies. I think they're more powerful as a symbiotic unit and the acquisition is only going to expand Eyevance's ability to service practices around the United States as both pipelines progress toward commercialization.
Having watched Eyevance from its infancy, it was obvious to me it was going to be a success with Jerry and Jason at the helm. To see Eyevance acquired by a company that is demonstrating themselves to be a powerful leader in our space, speaks to Eyevance's portfolio and personnel—they have a knack for hiring dynamic people. The combination of Santen and Eyevance signifies a blueprint for power and longevity through a very untraditional accelerated growth approach. Zerviate, for example, went from NDA to market in less than 3 years, and overall, Eyevance has five drugs on the market.
Being acquired and on track for continued growth with an incredibly rigorous scientific partner in Santen, well, it's a perfect fit in my mind. I am enamored with people in our space who excel at what they do. The uniqueness of the molecular design of the products in Eyevance's portfolio and the efficiency with which they have executed their strategy has surely been a formula for early success, and I have no doubt this will continue into the future.
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