Pierre Colombe Dromel: Restoring Vision with Cell Therapy and Tissue Engineering
Ladderworks is a publishing platform of diverse picture books and an online curriculum with the mission to empower over a million kids to become social entrepreneurs. Our current series features interviews by our interplanetary journalist Spiffy with inspiring Social Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Builders, and Changemakers who are advancing the UN SDGs.
Spiffy here with the scoop on the entrepreneurial leaders of Planet Earth. As the only interplanetary journalist stationed on this blue planet, I’m thrilled to present this galactic exclusive with Pierre Colombe Dromel, CEO of InGel Therapeutics. Let’s learn what’s happening at InGel Therapeutics and how Pierre is making a positive impact in the world.
Spiffy: Hi Pierre, thanks a million for talking to me today. What can you tell me about the challenge that you’re addressing through InGel Therapeutics?
Pierre: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! At InGel, we are creating novel cell therapies and tissue engineering solutions to treat patients affected by blinding disease, also known as retinal degenerative diseases. Most of these patients have no treatment and dread the day when the last ray of light will enter their eyes and they will wake up permanently blind. Our mission is to bring back light to these patients using our innovation. Our technology is gene agnostic, has shown tremendous pre-clinical efficacy and safety, and can be used to treat many different indications, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Dry-AMD.
Spiffy: Your work sounds life changing! Tell me more about what motivates you to do it.
Pierre: Most of us know someone in our entourage that has vision problems. These diseases are targeting more people every year and so much work needs to be done to create successful treatments for them. We have in our heart the only goal to make patients see again and live a better life with our technology. With the population aging, diseases like Dry-AMD will become more and more predominant, and it literally could happen to anyone. That is why we work hard 24/7 to bring our treatment to patients.
Spiffy: How many people can your work impact?
Pierre: Our work would help the 20 million Americans who are suffering from these diseases. Some of them do not have any vision problem yet, but live in the fear of losing their sight at any minute, while most of them already have a reduced vision and need to change their way of living to handle this issue. Our therapies should enable those patients to have better living conditions, to be able to drive, to work, to cross the street, or even to see their families, and friends. Some of these diseases are even mostly targeting young children who can become blind before becoming adults.
Spiffy: So inspiring! Thanks for speaking with me today, Pierre—it’s been an honor!
Pierre Colombe Dromel is CEO of InGel Therapeutics, where he is focused on innovating novel therapeutics and engineering approaches to bring them to patients suffering from retinal degenerative diseases. With a PhD from MIT in polymer sciences, Pierre has been extensively focusing on engineering biomimetic systems that can enhance regenerative medicine. (Nominated by Alex Parks at the Harvard Innovation Labs. First published on the Ladderworks website on June 27, 2023.)
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of Ladderworks LLC.
© 2023 Ladderworks LLC. Edited by Lindsey Brannon. Spiffy’s illustration by Shreyas Navare. For the Ladderworks digital curriculum to help K-3 kids advance the UN SDGs, visit Spiffy's Launchpad: Creative Entrepreneurship Workshops for K-3 Kids and their caregivers here.