THIS MONTH’S focus is on Tarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc. CLS recently had the pleasure to hear from Bobak “Bobby” Azamian, MD, PhD, Tarsus’ CEO and chairman.

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT TARSUS.

From day one, we’ve been focused on tackling really big unmet needs. Blepharitis, as a disease, is just really unserved. And that’s where our name comes from. I‘m an internist. I don‘t practice anymore, but I remembered the tarsal plates from anatomy class and thought, well that’s a pretty powerful name for an eyelid-focused company.

[Tarsus is] about six years old. I cofounded it with Michael Ackermann, PhD, another eyecare-focused entrepreneur. We wanted to do things differently—not only with the disease that we’re going after but with the team that we’re building, and with the drug that we bring to the table.

We started the company around Demodex blepharitis. Despite decades of trying to address blepharitis with different therapies, we thought the time was now for root-cause driven, Demodex-targeted therapy. That was our mission. Like a lot of stories go, it sometimes works out exactly how you plan it, and sometimes it works out even better; in this case, it’s the latter.

We found the silver bullet for Demodex mites in lotilaner, a drug that has a well-established history from animal health and has been designed to be the latest, best, most-effective, safest antiparasitic molecule. We’ve uniquely formulated it for human use in an eye drop. Now, we have that name out there—Xdemvy; that’s the drug that we think will be able to serve millions who have this disease.

TELL US ABOUT ANY NEW INITIATIVES.

I’m really proud of the awareness that we’ve generated in the eyecare community. That goes back to our culture. We’ve built a culture that has three key elements: a commitment to patients, empowerment of our employees specifically to innovate, and a real sense of teamwork.

It starts with hiring leaders who embody and take ownership of those values. We want to bring those values not only within [Tarsus], but also to all the partners we have in the eyecare community that will be committed to patients.

We also see culture as not just about our mission of blepharitis and serving unmet needs but also about changing the community and being more effective in our business and having people belong in our company. We are very proud that we have more than 50% ethnic and gender diversity at Tarsus. We want to make sure that people can come into my office, [that] my door is open all the time, [and] that people are feeling supported and connected and that permeates throughout the company.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR VISION FOR THE EYECARE FIELD.

There are so many diseases that aren’t served in eye care. Think about ocular surface disease—that’s an array of different diseases. We know with dry eye that it’s not just one cause, for example. I [anticipate] better definition of diseases and then the ability to treat the root causes of those diseases as the big theme that will impact eye care. Of course, we’re doing that with blepharitis with Demodex blepharitis. We have a program in [meibomian gland disease] that we’re excited about as well.

But I look at the whole field, I look at geographic atrophy, which has amazing new developments with therapies, and in retina, where there’s a lot of unmet needs, and we see those in the front of the eye, certainly with the eyelids. There’s a number of diseases of the eyelids and the ocular surface that aren’t served. That’s what I see in the next 20 years. As we age, we will have the ability to feel better, look better, and see better by treating those diseases that don’t have solutions today. CLS