The eyes may be the window to a person's soul, but they are also a complex, dynamic, and essential organ that allows us to experience life as we know it. From the time you're born, the eye is continually changing as a result of its environment, and continues to serve as our window to the world until the day we die.

For physicians and scientists alike, the complexity of this small but vital organ provides us with both unique challenges and opportunities.

For every molecule we investigate, we want to believe it is capable of making a significant impact on the lives of patients living with a vision-threatening disease. After more than 35 years of bringing first-in-class medicines to patients, we still constantly look for the next innovation that may bring relief to people and help improve their quality of life.

Right now, we’re investigating treatments to evaluate efficacy in giant cell arteritis, a disease that can lead to blindness. We’re leveraging previous research conducted in our immunology group, and applying it to conditions like uveitis and dry eye, all in an effort to further our progress in understanding and treating ophthalmic diseases.

Genentech has a long history of developing medicine across disease areas. But we’re not just committed to diseases that affect a significant number of people.

We’re also focused on developing medicines that address vision-threatening diseases for orphan indications that afflict smaller patient groups such as pathologic myopia, a rare type of shortsightedness. And we’re investigating proprietary platforms capable of addressing the current unmet need within ophthalmology of sustained ocular delivery through an ocular implant, as well as formulations and biodegradable implants.

We believe the days of trial and error where you target a broad population with a specific treatment are coming to a close. To this end, we have initiated clinical trials for a medicine that could help patients with a specific biomarker who have geographic atrophy, an advanced form of dry AMD.

We are following a similar strategy with all of our medicines, a strategy that ultimately results in increasing the probability of more of our treatments becoming available to treat patients. We follow the science.

Our scientists, our researchers, and our team members only have one set of questions to ask—Can we help patients? Can we improve their lives? Is this molecule, is this target, going to address an unmet need or provide a different way to treat a disease?

Our vision for ophthalmology is simple: Bring innovative therapeutics to patients with diseases of the eye that cause significant vision loss. The chance to make a significant difference in the lives of people with ocular disorders over the next 20 years is going to be even greater than it has been in the past 20.

We’re excited to be a part of ophthalmology—and likewise, excited that we’re at the forefront of developing novel molecules to address unmet needs.