Generous inventor
He has an eye for business and a business for eyes, but Mr Bobby Qureshi wants to use the proceeds from the sale of an exciting new technology to fund the world’s biggest campaign to save eyesight. Leslie Berry reports
With regular appearances in the world’s media launching some of the most advanced, ‘space-age’ technologies, it is hard to deny that Harley Street eye surgeon Mr Bobby Qureshi (right) has an ‘eye’ for business.
Most recently, he made international headlines through joining forces with an award-winning Spanish physicist to utilise Hubble Telescope technology.
The resulting development has been hailed as the most significant breakthrough in the treatment of the major cause of blindness in those aged over 55 in the Western world: the debilitating disease age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Globally, over 13m cataract procedures are performed each year on patients who, he says, are suitable for an implant that can help alleviate their symptoms from AMD.
This is growing at almost 4% annually and there are no currently accepted surgical solutions. Previous attempts at a solution required extensive incisions of up to 11mm carrying significant risks and have not been widely adopted.
Mr Qureshi and optical physicist Prof Pablo Artal’s ‘revolutionary’ implant iolAMD (pictured right) is not just able to successfully treat millions of sufferers, but also light up the eyes of investors and financial markets internationally with potential returns put at circa $2.5bn.
Game-changing technology
According to Rob Hill, chief executive of London Eye Hospital Pharma, the innovation company which has brought iolAMD to market, there are very few recent precedents for a game-changing technology like this in the world of ophthalmic surgery.
He says: ‘One of the most recent was IntraLase, which brought to market a new way of cutting flaps in LASIK surgery. IntraLase sold for $808m in 2007, based on sales of only $131m. We are confident that with the reasonable unit price, the simplicity of the procedure and the size of the market, iolAMD will be making not just eye health but financial history.’
The new patented technology is expected to help millions of sufferers in the early and middle stages of dry AMD, for whom until now there has never been an accepted treatment.
Dry AMD affects nine times more people than wet AMD. In dry AMD, there is a build-up of waste products in the retina which support the cells that give us vision.
But wet AMD involves breakages in the retina as some blood vessels grow abnormally.
Lucentis, the injection used to treat wet AMD, is worth over $2.4bn annually to its owners Novartis. Wet AMD, however, only affects 10% of the world’s sufferers, leaving the market wide open to the new iolAMD implant.
The tiny iolAMD implant (pictured in situ, below), which has regulatory approval and is based on an approach by NASA to tackle fuzzy images from the Hubble Telescope, can be inserted in just two minutes via a tiny incision (3mm) by any competent eye surgeon trained in cataract surgery. The training required is minimal.
Another great benefit is that it can be done at the same time as cataract surgery, as 50% of the 23m annual cataract patients already suffer a degree of AMD.
Simple solution
The lens is effective in the treatment of dry AMD, established wet forms of AMD and other macular disease, including diabetic maculopathy caused by diabetes.
Mr Qureshi’s objective had been to find a simple and cost-effective solution to the ever-growing problem of age-related blindness.
He approached Prof Artal – the first-ever European winner of the prestigious Edward H. Land Award for scientific contributions to the advancement of visual optics – with his quest.
Mr Qureshi, who is the London Eye Hospital Pharma’s chief medical officer, says: ‘The idea just made common sense to me as an eye surgeon. I perform cataract operations day in, day out, but had been frustrated by not being able to successfully treat my AMD patients.
‘Now at the same time as I perform routine cataract surgery, I can implant iolAMD and reduce the visual compromises caused by AMD.’
Numerous clinical studies are ongoing to verify the success of the hundreds of patients that Mr Qureshi has already treated at the London Eye Hospital. Additionally, there are many academic centres around the world who have independently verified these findings.
The current one-off cost of the iolAMD surgery to patients is around £6,000 per eye, which is equivalent to the annual cost of injections for wet AMD.
London Eye Hospital Pharma said it hopes to make iolAMD accessible to patients on the NHS and through insurers.
Mr Qureshi says: ‘I’m just concerned about saving eyesight. This technology isn’t just a step forward, it’s a giant leap towards restoring vision to millions of people around the world.
Biggest campaign
‘I want to use all of the resources we have, including the proceeds from the sale of this exciting new technology, to fund the world’s biggest campaign to save eyesight.
‘Millions of children around the world go blind unnecessarily due to entirely preventable conditions such as trachoma – and I see it as my mission to eradicate this disease.
‘Our pledge is to rectify that once and for all and any revenue created by iolAMD is sure to be a part of this promise to deliver.’
Mr Qureshi’s charitable organisation aimed at the eradication of this condition is www.londoneyehospitaltrust.org.
iolAMD was launched at one of the world’s leading eye surgery congresses, European Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons, last September at the Excel exhibition centre in London.
The London Eye Hospital and its team already have a long list of successful launches including:
The Symfony lens, which could spell the end of both distance and reading glasses for some patients;
The Light Adjustable Lens, which is the most technologically advanced implant now available, with the capacity to be altered after surgery to optimise vision;
Pioneering use of the Teneo laser, which is used to treat near- and far-sightedness, astigmatism (misshaped cornea or lens) and presbyopia (age-related far-sightedness).