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LIPNP1115B_2026-11-15-12-05-12

Welcome back. This is our exclusive conversation with Regeneron's co-founder Doctor George Yiankopoulos. We continue our conversation now with their multi-billion dollar expansion plans and the other drugs they have in the pipeline. 60 medicines in the pipeline right now, right? What is the next disease that you're closest to solving? We just had one gene therapy approved for genetic hearing loss. Um, we have another one, that we hope will be approved for myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease where people develop. Weakness we have a gene therapy there which had we think the best in class data for this disease there's other drugs approved, but this would be the first gene therapy for this approach that looks very exciting. We have things in the pipeline that are working for, uh, in the field of obesity and comorbidities. We have many exciting approaches in the pipeline for cancer, um, that we think could really change the standard of care for many different forms of cancer. Um, and of course our, our heritage, our background, uh, we've been innovators in the field of immune diseases, allergic diseases, and so forth. So the exciting thing about Regeneron is we have so much exciting stuff and it's all driven by a combination of human innovation coming up with new technologies that can advance our science. Helped by tools like AI. There's been a lot of scary warnings about AI. In fact, as we were, you know, getting ready for this interview, the CEO of Anthropic said, Whoa, we need to slow down development, slow down this industry, or if not, he's warning of catastrophic consequences. I know in the past you've been somewhat skeptical about the hype surrounding AI. What do you think? Are we moving too fast? I think that there are certainly Uh, areas where putting um AI in control of processes and so forth can have risks, and I think that's what they're talking about, but the thing that we also have to understand is fundamentally AI also can't solve all our problems. I think a lot of people have too many expectations that AI can literally. Come up with new ideas and really think in ways that humans haven't thought of before for those so we use a lot of AI here um I think we do it in a very responsible way we use it as a tool to really amplify and help uh. A lot of our research and it's it's an incredible tool and it really helps us move things forward but for the new big breakthrough ideas for the real advances we still need humans because people have to fundamentally understand what AI can do and what it can do. AI is simply trained. On everything in the past, so it's great at regurgitating for us the past and telling us about it, but it can't come up with a brand new idea. So many of the breakthroughs that our industry has had and regenerate have been pioneers in are great ideas that human beings have come up with that AI right now, the current. The current standards of AI is very far, if ever, able to come up with those kinds of new ideas, but right now we're still dependent for the real big breakthroughs, the big new ideas, the things that have not been thought of before. They can't come from AI because AI is trained on the past. What concerns you the most about AI? I think the biggest concern is whether too many people have too much of a dependence on it and count on it for making a difference going forward. As I said, it's still for the foreseeable future until somebody comes up with a real new AI where the A stands for actual that can replace human intelligence, we're going to still need to engage and inspire the best of the next generation. Let's bring it back to Westchester. There has been so much expansion, so much growth since we last caught up with you, and I believe in fact that this building wasn't even here the last time we caught up with you. Bring us up to speed on what's new. We have thousands. Of committed people led by our scientists trying to do good by coming up with new cures and always innovating, always inventing new ways of doing it that requires growth. It requires more people. And that success that we've had from delivering some of the world's leading medicines have now allowed us to have the growth that can bring more people to join uh in our forces. So right here on our Tarrytown campus, not only have we invested and we've built this new. Uh, building that we, um, use for our early manufacturing stage development, uh, but we're building more, we're investing almost $4 billion on this campus alone which will add once again thousands of more highly skilled. Lab workers to our forces to help fight disease. That $4 billion figure, nearly $4 billion that you mentioned when you announced the expansion in 2021, it was closer to $1.8. So you're more, way more than doubled the investment here. What changed? What is that additional investment going towards? Like I said, success drives the need to get more people to join in. To help drive more success, um, and I think that that's, that's what's driving our growth that that we are delivering, we're delivering innovative new medicines, uh, we have more ideas, we have more technologies, and we need more people helping out. When you announced the expansion, a big part of that was a promise to create 1000 new jobs, new high. Paying jobs, have you met that milestone yet? Are you on track to meet it? Well, since we probably announced that we've hired many more than 1000 people, and I think we'll be adding many more than that going forward in the future as well. And a company of this size and of this scale with the medicines that you have in the pipeline could grow and expand literally anywhere on the planet. Why do you keep Investing in the tri-state and Westchester County, we do have facilities and capabilities worldwide, but I think that there is a certain magic to having as many people as you can within a local community, uh, where people can be constantly meeting each other, uh, and exchanging ideas and brainstorming face to face despite the hype about. You know, virtual meetings and so forth. The magic really happens when you bring a bunch of really smart people together to really exchange ideas, debate them, discuss them, and I've been in, in the room many times where when you do that, magic happens. Still to come, one final question for Regeneron's co-founder, Doctor George Giankopoulos.

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LIPNP1115C_2026-11-15-12-04-34

Welcome back to this special edition of Power in Politics. The conclusion now to our exclusive conversation with Doctor George Yiankopoulos. You know, we've been with you to your old high school, the Bronx High School of Science. You're the son of Greek immigrants. You now sponsor the science competition that you once competed in. When you zoom out and you look at the state of American science, are you Are you at all worried that we're making it harder for the next George Yiankopoulos to emerge? I think we always have to strive to do better, as you said. We try to do our part. We invest hundreds of millions of dollars to try to identify the next great scientist, engage them, and inspire them, but obviously we can't do it alone. We need the whole ecosystem to buy in. And as I said, that's something that We all have to recognize that we have to do the best that we can to identify and support the best and the brightest, you know, we highlight that we celebrate that with sports we should be highlighting and celebrating it with our top young scientific talent, uh, and the more we can emphasize that, the more we can attract interest, the more we can celebrate. I think the more we might be able to engage and inspire the best young minds to go into science, and you're now 4 decades right into your career here, what problem is still out there in the scientific community that you feel like you must solve before you can say that your life's work is complete? I feel like I'm just getting started, um, because why? Because we're getting smarter, stronger, faster in our capabilities and technologies. But as I already mentioned, I went into this because my beloved grandmother, or yay as we say in Greek, was suffering from early dementia and what we now call Alzheimer's. We've been focused in fighting neurodegenerative diseases here at Regeneration from the beginning. Some from the outside might say we have little to show for it, but we've been working continuously, consistently. On fighting these horrible diseases that take your mind, this is why we need commitment, investment in innovation, and as a society we've got to continuously learn that without relentless innovation we'll be going backwards. So we've got to relentlessly try to go forward and keep pushing that bleeding edge further and forward and forward. That's what I'm committed to. And as I said, I'm just getting started. We at Regeneration, we're just getting started. And that's where we left our conversation. Three years after we last sat down, there was so much to catch up on, from new breakthroughs in gene therapy to Regeneron's rapid growth and presence here in the tri-state. For more of our conversation, head on over to News12.com. I'm Tara Rosenblum. Thank you for joining us.

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Dr. George Yancopoulus, one of the world's leading scientists and medicine makers, sits down with News 12 on this special episode of "Power & Politics."

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