Industry titan Roy Vagelos, who has chaired the Regeneron board since 1995, is set to retire later this year, the company said Monday.

Vagelos’ 28-year stint as board chair will come to a close after Regeneron’s annual shareholder meeting in June. 

In an unusual move, the board plans to split the chairmanship, with Leonard Schleifer and George Yancopoulos each serving as co-chair, in addition to their roles as president/CEO and president/chief scientific officer, respectively. 

Christine Poon, a current director, will become lead independent director. 

The story of how Vagelos joined the New York-based company is enshrined in biopharma lore. Schleifer founded Regeneron in 1988 and recruited Yancopoulos the following year, with the promise of developing drugs for neurobiology. 

However, setbacks mounted. In the early 1990s, the company was forced to halt trials on a drug for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the Food and Drug Administration subsequently rejected its weight-loss medicine. 

Schleifer and Yancopoulos realized they needed to broaden Regeneron beyond its initial neurology focus to one that used mouse genetics and technology to develop therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. As such, they needed a seasoned businessman-scientist to help them make the transition. 

They found one in Vagelos, who had been chairman and CEO of Merck, and to their astonishment, he accepted the job. The hiring marked a full-circle moment for Yancopoulos, the son of Greek immigrants whose father had suggested Vagelos should be his son’s role model. 

Yancopoulos said in a statement that he recalls “the day in 1975 when my father showed me an article in the Greek newspaper about [Vagelos’] similar background and incredible achievements at Merck.”

In addition to broadening the firm’s horizons, Vagelos encouraged Regeneron to focus its research on disease settings where biological profiles can be fully characterized and clinical benefits evaluated more quickly. It took Regeneron another decade plus, but it won approval for its first drug in 2008, Arcalyst for a rare genetic disease.

A few years later came Eylea, for treating age-related macular degeneration and, more recently, diabetic retinopathy. Eylea, which became Regeneron’s first commercial blockbuster, was followed by other hits, including Dupixent in 2017, which is now Sanofi’s top-selling product. 

In 2020 Regeneron discovered and developed one of the first novel COVID-19 antibody cocktails, Inmazeb. 

Schleifer, who served as chair before Vagelos joined the company, credited him with providing “invaluable guidance as we have built Regeneron into what it is today.” 

When Vagelos came on-board, the stock was $2 a share. It’s now trading around $819. Market capitalization is valued at $90.7 billion. The company has nine FDA-approved products, with about 35 product candidates in clinical development. Its 2022 revenue topped $12 billion. 

Vagelos said he’s “watched with pride” over his nearly three decades with the firm as Regeneron transformed from a small biotech into a successful research-based biopharma company.

Summing up his tenure at Regeneron, Vagelos called it “a privilege.”