Martin B. Wax, MD

Martin B. Wax M.D. is currently the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice-President of R&D at PanOptica, Inc., a private biotechnology company specializing in ophthalmic pharmaceuticals. He was Vice President of R&D and Head of Ophthalmology Discovery Research and Preclinical Sciences at Alcon Laboratories in Ft. Worth, Texas from 2003-2008. He was responsible for the creation and development of the Alcon pharmaceutical portfolio of compounds for the therapeutic areas of glaucoma, retina, allergy, dry eye and anti-infectives.  He also holds an appointment as a Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas and has been selected as one of the “Best Doctors in America” 2005-2008 by his peers.  Dr. Wax received his medical degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He completed his residency in Ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital in Pennsylvania, and was a postdoctoral fellow first in Neuropharmacology and then in Glaucoma at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Prior to entering industry as the head of Ophthalmology Research at Pharmacia Corporation in 2002, he held the distinguished Research to Prevent Blindness Chair as a Professor of Ophthalmology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. He has chaired numerous national and international commercial advisory boards for industry sponsors throughout his academic and industry career.

 Dr. Wax has received over two decades of continuous research support from the National Institute of Health, the Glaucoma Research Foundation, Research to Prevent Blindness and the American Health Assistance Foundation.  He has coauthored more than 200 publications including peer-reviewed articles, abstracts and chapter in books and is an internationally recognized scientific expert in the field of glaucoma. His research has focused on the cell biology of aqueous humor formation and the role of the immune system in glaucomatous optic neuropathy.

 Dr. Wax was the recipient of the 1991 Robert E. McCormick Scholarship and the 1995 Lew R. Wasserman Merit Award for his contributions to basic eye research, the 1999 Rudin Prize from the NY Academy of Medicine,  the 2001 Senior Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness and the 2003 Clinician-Scientist Award from the American Glaucoma Society.  He is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Eye Research, and the American Glaucoma Society.  He currently serves on several national and international Scientific Advisory Committees, Editorial Boards, and corporate Boards.