President and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., has built Regeneron alongside CEO and President Leonard S. Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., as its President and Chief Scientific Officer for the past 30 years. Regeneron invents life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases. Its unique ability to repeatedly and consistently translate science into medicine has led to ten FDA-approved or FDA-authorized treatments and numerous product candidates in development, all of which were homegrown in its laboratories, for a range of diseases, including cancer, vision-threatening eye diseases, asthma and infectious diseases. Dr. Yancopoulos is the holder of more than 100 patents and a principal inventor of Regeneron’s medicines and foundational technologies. He is the key driver of Regeneron’s unique science-driven culture and successful drug discovery and development engine, which includes the company’s COVID-19 program to address the ongoing pandemic with an investigational antibody cocktail.
After graduating as valedictorian at both Bronx High and Columbia University, George received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University. Later at Columbia, he served as legendary geneticist Dr. Fred Alt’s first post-doctorate student, working in molecular immunology. Dr. Yancopoulos was the 11th most highly cited scientist in the world in the 1990s, in 2004 was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences, and in 2014 was elected as a Fellow by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2019, Dr. Yancopoulos was awarded Columbia College’s Alexander Hamilton Medal, the highest honor awarded to a member of the Columbia College community for distinguished service and accomplishment in any field of endeavor. Earlier this year, he was named on Fortune’s World’s 25 Greatest Leaders: Heroes Of The Pandemic and received the Business Council of Westchester’s Global Leadership Laureate Award along with Dr. Schleifer.
