George Yancopoulos


George D. Yancopoulos is an American biomedical scientist who is the co-founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.
Yancopoulos is the holder of more than 100 patents. He is a principal inventor and developer of Regeneron's six FDA-approved medicines, as well as of Regeneron's foundational technologies for target and drug development, such as its proprietary TRAP technology, and the VelociGene and VelocImmune antibody technologies.

Early life and education

He spent his early childhood in Woodside, New York. As a student at the Bronx High School of Science, Yancopoulos was a top winner of the 1976 Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Intel and then Regeneron later assumed the title sponsorship for the Science Talent Search.
After graduating as valedictorian of both the Bronx High School of Science and Columbia College, Yancopoulos received his MD and PhD degrees in 1987 from Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons. He then worked in the field of molecular immunology at Columbia University with Dr. Fred Alt, for which he received the Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award.
He currently resides in Yorktown Heights.

Scientific career

Based on his scientific publications, he was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. According to a study by the Institute for Scientific Information, he was the eleventh most highly cited scientist in the world during the 1990s, and the only scientist from the biotechnology industry on the list.
Yancopoulos has cloned novel families of growth factors, including ephrins/Ephs and angiopoietins, and elucidated the basis of how many receptors work. His work has included study of how nerves regenerate and how muscles connect to nerves.
In 1985, along with his mentor Dr. Fred Alt, he was the first to propose making mouse models with genetically human immune systems. This research led to Yancopoulos developing "the most valuable mouse ever made," bred to have immune systems that respond just as a human's would, so that it can be used for testing how the human body might react to various pharmaceuticals and other substances.
Much of Yancopoulos and Alt's work in immunology including common recombination, accessibility control of recombination and scanning or tracking of recombinant action, has been recently validated.

Career

Yancopoulos left academia in 1989 to become the founding scientist and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals with Founder and Chief Executive Officer Leonard Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D. In 2016, Yancopoulos was also named President of the company.
Yancopoulos plays an active role in Regeneron's STEM Education commitments, including the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the nation's oldest high school science and math competition.
In 2014, Yancopoulos led the launch of the Regeneron Genetics Center, a major initiative in human genetic research that has sequenced exomes from over 1,000,000 people as of 2020.
Forbes magazine states Yancopoulos' financial stake in Regeneron has made him a billionaire. He is the first research and development chief in the pharmaceutical industry to become a billionaire.

Boards and awards

Yancopoulos won a NY/NJ CEO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
Yancopoulos has been awarded Columbia University's Stevens Triennial Prize for Research and its University Medal of Excellence for Distinguished Achievement.
In 2016, Leonard Schleifer and George Yancopoulos were named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year 2016 National Award Winners in life sciences.
The George D. Yancopoulos Young Scientist Award is given at the Westchester Science & Engineering Fair.
He was inducted into the Bronx Science Hall of Fame in 2017.

Key Papers

Appearances

Yancopoulos has been confirmed to speak at the annual drug development festival Biotech Week Boston in September 2019.