Jehan Tamboowalla.

SEATTLE—Visus Therapeutics announces Jehan Tamboowalla has joined the company as senior vice president of business development and marketing. At Visus, Tamboowalla will be responsible for identifying and executing strategic partnerships and collaborations as well as leading commercial activities for assets in clinical development. He brings over 20 years of experience in business development, marketing and portfolio strategy in the ophthalmic and pharmaceutical spaces. Prior to joining Visus, Tamboowalla served as vice president, head of new products, ophthalmology at Novartis.

At Novartis, Tamboowalla and his team led the commercial evaluations of external partnering and acquisition opportunities including, most recently, the successful acquisition of gene-therapy company, Gyroscope Therapeutics. Other notable transactions included securing global (ex-US) rights to Luxturna from Spark Therapeutics, in-licensing Xiidra from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and the acquisition of the presbyopia asset, UNR844 from Encore Vision.

Prior to joining Novartis, Tamboowalla was managing director at Red Team Associates, a boutique consulting firm, specialized in working with emerging biopharma, private equity, and venture capital clients. Tamboowalla’s prior industry experience includes multiple product launches and marketing roles of increasing responsibility at Bayer, Bausch + Lomb, and GSK. He continues to coach and mentor future industry leaders and speak at ophthalmology industry forums on emerging innovation and commercial strategy.

 
 
Ben Bergo, co-founder and chief executive officer at Visus Therapeutics, said, “We are pleased to welcome Jehan to the Visus leadership team as we approach exciting company milestones. Jehan’s successful record of partnering assets, acquiring novel technologies, and launching ophthalmic medicines provides Visus the expertise required to deliver on our goal of addressing critical unmet needs in the presbyopia eye drop category and beyond.”

Jehan Tamboowalla said, “Visus is developing one of the best pipelines in the industry. I am thrilled to join Visus at such an exciting time for the company. Visus has several key milestones on the horizon, and I look forward to working closely with Ben and the entire Visus leadership team to provide effective treatments for patients impacted by vision loss.”