George D. Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, is the co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, where he has served as lead inventor and drug developer since its inception more than 30 years ago. Yancopoulos and his team are responsible for blockbuster treatments such as EYLEA® (for blindness-causing diseases) and Dupixent® (for asthma, atopic dermatitis and other allergic diseases), as well as dozens of other approved and promising investigational medicines. Yancopoulos invented the foundational technologies that enabled these drug discoveries, including VelocImmune®, the leading human antibody technology.
Yancopoulos attended New York City public schools and graduated as valedictorian of the Bronx High School of Science in 1976, where he was a top winner of the nation’s premier high school science competition, then known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now known as the Regeneron Science Talent Search). Yancopoulos attended Columbia College, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1980. He received his M.D. from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He launched his career as an academic scientist with Dr. Frederick W. Alt at Columbia, working in molecular immunology.
In 1989, Yancopoulos left academia to join Leonard S. Schleifer, MD, PhD, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Regeneron. Under their leadership, Regeneron has become one of the most admired and innovative companies in the biotech industry, with seven FDA-approved medicines and a pipeline of over twenty additional investigational products, all homegrown in the company’s own laboratories. The company has worked swiftly to address recent public health threats and has developed promising investigational treatments for Ebola and Covid-19. His team continues to pursue cutting-edge research and technologies, including through the Regeneron Genetics Center, a world-leading effort that has sequenced the exomes of nearly one million people and paired this information with de-identified medical records in the quest to identify new and improved treatment options.
Yancopoulos was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, inducted into the Biotech Hall of Fame in 2014, and named E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016 (along with Dr. Schleifer). He is passionate about supporting the next generation of great young scientists and leads Regeneron’s numerous STEM education and mentorship programs, including a $100+ million commitment to the Regeneron Science Talent Search and Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Regeneron has routinely been listed by Forbes as one of the “Ten Most Innovative Companies in the World” and by Science magazine as either the 1st or 2nd Top Biopharma Company to work for over the past nine years.
