Justin Creel
Executive Director - Device Development Genentech
Dr. Creel leads the development team at Genentech focused on novel ocular drug delivery devices.  He has 15+ years of leadership in medical devcie development, focusing on orthopedics and ophthalmic drug delviery devices.  
Seminars
Wednesday 28th January 2026
Subretinal Injections: Precision Targeting with High Clinical Cost: What Developers Need to Know to Succeed
9:00 am
Subretinal injections represent one of the most targeted yet invasive approaches in ocular therapy. While they are gaining ground in gene therapy development, clinical concerns remain around surgical risk, formulation demands, and long-term safety.Â
This session brings a lens to the realities of delivering into the subretinal space.
- Explore the true clinical burden of subretinal delivery: a full vitrectomy, specialized surgical training, and the risk of permanent retinal detachment
- Understand why subretinal delivery has been mostly confined to gene therapy and what would need to change for devices or new modalities to enter this space
- Discuss key formulation challenges, including mechanical constraints for cells or biomaterials, and the difficulty of ensuring therapeutic distribution across the retina
- Thoughts on immunosuppressants: helpful but limited, with short-term use standard and long-term risks not yet well managed
Thursday 29th January 2026
Panel Discussion: Emerging Device Modalities for Non-Invasive & Precision-Controlled Ocular Drug Delivery
4:30 pm
- Introduce device strategies that expand access to therapies for earlier-stage disease or preventive care
- Explore non-surgical delivery routes using devices that achieve precise spatial control with minimal invasiveness
- Examine how smart implants, responsive polymers, and controlled microfluidic pumps can usher in next-generation, refillable platforms
- Discuss the engineering that remain for these novel approaches to reach the clinic
