Rajesh Rajpal, MD, the founder of See Clearly Vision Group in McLean, Va., specializes in cataract surgery, cornea/external diseases, anterior segment surgery, LASIK and refractive surgery. He currently serves as chief medical officer and global head of clinical and medical affairs at Johnson & Johnson Vision. Dr. Rajpal also holds appointments on the clinical faculties of Georgetown and George Washington University Medical Centers and serves as the cornea consultant to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Ophthalmology Management: Can you discuss your role as chief medical officer and global head of clinical and medical affairs at Johnson & Johnson Vision and how you got started in this role?

Dr. Rajesh Rajpal: As chief medical officer, I have the privilege of guiding the clinical and medical affairs team — that includes a number of clinicians, both optometrists and ophthalmologists. The clinical and medical affairs team helps guide our portfolio and our pipeline of products. That comprises both the vision care part of our business (which is primarily the contact lens aspects of the business, ACUVUE and all of the other related products) and the surgical vision part of the business. This includes TECNIS IOLs, our phacoemulsification equipment (the VERITAS Vision System) as well as our refractive lasers (the S4 excimer, the IntraLase femtosecond laser and the CATALYS Precision Laser System for cataract surgery.) The clinical and medical affairs team also works on all of the clinical studies related to developing those products and bringing them to market and then to patients and doctors.

In my role, I also have the opportunity to participate in the vision leadership team, which is our overall leadership team for the Johnson & Johnson Vision business. I was drawn to the company because of the tremendous impact it has on eye care. At Johnson & Johnson Vision, we estimate that we impact more than 40 million people a year. It is really gratifying to be able to play a small role in that. To help guide a larger organization with what’s happening in eye care at a much larger scale and to have that impact is really what motivated me to move towards industry.

OM: Can you talk about how continuing to practice impacts the work you currently do with Johnson & Johnson Vision?

RR: As a clinician, I think the really important aspect to me as an ophthalmologist, was continuing to practice. Personally, I find that very satisfying and I think it’s so wonderful to be able to help patients one on one. In ophthalmology, we’re privileged to be able to have patients, for example, after cataract surgery or LASIK surgery fortunately generally see so well the next day that they’re thrilled. I didn’t want to ever give that up. This allows me to help Johnson & Johnson Vision understand what doctors and patients want and need. This also helps me in working with my peers and making sure that they know I can be a voice for them and patients within J&J.

OM: What are some of the latest developments at Johnson & Johnson Vision in terms of with the company and its products?

RR: What I think we continue to do well is really look at patient outcomes as our driving force in terms of what we’re developing and the types of technology we’re focused on; we also look at where the greatest need is. One of our main areas of focus is developing technology that will hopefully slow down the progression of myopia, because that may have many ocular health benefits beyond just the prescription that the patient has to wear.

We have breakthrough designation from the FDA for a contact lens that is currently in clinical trials. It is approved in a few markets already, but that’s one of the main areas of focus for our vision care business. In vision care, we’re focused on continuing to develop new technology and contact lenses for myopia, presbyopia and for astigmatism.

On the surgical vision side of the business, last year we introduced the TECNIS Eyhance IOL, which is a monofocal IOL that is designed to slightly extend the depth of focus. Also last year, we launched the TECNIS Synergy IOL, a presbyopia-correcting IOL that gives a range of continuous vision, even in dim light. In September 2022, we introduced the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue IOL, a presbyopia-correcting IOL powered by InteliLight technology, that provides extended depth-of-focus, great range of vision and visual acuity performance across that entire range. We are continuing to develop new IOL technology that will hopefully continue to improve and evolve and allow patients to have even better outcomes through the range of vision.

Finally, on the phacoemulsification side, last year, we launched the VERITAS Vision System, a next-generation phacoemulsification system. On the laser refractive surgery side, we have a program for the next generation excimer laser that is in development.

We also have a program for femtosecond laser technology called ELITA that is in development for both creating flaps in the cornea as well as lenticule extraction. The benefit of this, we believe, is that lenticule removal is going to be easier and that will allow the visual recovery to be more rapid. We’re currently doing those clinical trials, and hoping to bring that to market very soon in Europe initially and then throughout the world.

OM: How does Johnson & Johnson Vision help eye-care professionals engage with patients from a digital remote, virtual perspective?

RR: One area that crosses over both vision care and surgical vision is what we’re doing in the digital space. We’re looking at how to help eye-care professionals engage with patients from a digital remote, virtual perspective even better than they can now. Through COVID, everyone understood and learned how to do that better, but also how to better connect the operating room to the practices and how to connect in an optometrist office to patients that are ordering contact lenses.

We are looking at the entire ecosystem of how we use technology to help doctors ultimately be able to have better interaction or more interaction with patients, but also then to facilitate the process so that it’s easier integrating with electronic health records, reduces the likelihood of errors and ultimately gives the ability to achieve the best outcomes for patients in terms of their vision. OM