On KOLs and IOLs With Rayner’s Tim Clover

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Rayner is best known for its intraocular lenses (IOLs). It developed the world’s first IOL and is the sole manufacturer of IOLs in the UK. The company currently manufactures 1.3 million lenses a year, but there’s more to the story. Rayner’s portfolio also includes a delivery system, ophthalmic viscosurgical devices, drops, and a digital health platform that captures patient-reported outcomes.

CEO Tim Clover discusses Rayner’s diversified focus and data-driven initiatives with OIS Podcast host Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD. They also talk about how Clover helped move the company in a new direction, which included tearing down one factory and moving into a new R&D, training, and production facility in Worthing, West Sussex, England.

Clover also helped Rayner secure a partnership with Brussels-based HASA OPTIX, which manufactures single-use ophthalmic surgical instruments.

Listen to the podcast to discover:

• The challenges of Clover’s transition from a nonexecutive director role to CEO, both individually and for the organization.
• What’s new with Rayner and how it plans to acquire real-world data from its lenses.
• Rayner’s new Peer2Peer initiative to engage with leading, high-volume, and emerging key opinion leaders (KOLs).
• Clover’s thoughts on nurturing the next generation of industry leaders.
• The gaps in the eye care device industry and how professionals can come together to affect change.
• What motivates Clover every day as a leader. Hint: It has little to do with innovation.

Click “play” to listen.

Transcript:

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Hello again, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the OIS Podcast. I’m Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD, your host for today. And I’m delighted today to be joined by a fellow Brit, none other than Tim clover, CEO of Rayner. Now, Rayner, as you may know, is a British company and the only manufacturer of intraocular lenses in the UK. So I didn’t know this when I first knew of Rayner. So I’m delighted to learn more about the company. But I’m more excited to learn more about Tim. So Tim, welcome to the podcast delighted to have you. I would love to know of course about Rayner its history, and where it’s going in the future. But to start with, tell us something about your career to journey to date, because I know you’ve had quite a history in the ophthalmology business. So take us through your career arc.

Tim Clover
Thank you. I actually about 100 years ago, I did a degree in mathematics and physics and went into r&d in optical physics. And that was my first touch of ophthalmology, took me about two years to realize I really wasn’t meant to be in r&d Switch the PhD for an MBA and then went through a bunch of sales and marketing type roles within mostly Zeiss and Allegan. And then actually, I was very, very lucky to be involved in the spirit of amo from Allergan, which taught me an awful lot and I think actually made me slightly more entrepreneurial, and risk orientated in my choices after that. So this took me through an Oxford University spin out company in more digital health orientated. And then into fidelity, where I ran a small private equity fund and amongst other things, bought 20 Eye hospitals. So I always sort of drifted away from ophthalmology, and then got brought rapidly back and I joined Rayner in 2014, as a non exec director, to give them an independent view of strategy. And one of the things that the time that was clear was the company was the spectacle, retailer, and medical technology manufacturer. And it was clear to me at least that the company should be the latter, not the former and focus on that entirely.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
So thank you for sharing this wonderful history. And I think two themes really resonate with me. Firstly, you made me laugh when you said that ophthalmology kept on pulling you back in I think that’s something that happens to a lot of us. And you know, secondly, you’ve not only been a sort of entrepreneur, but you’ve also been an investor and now your CEO. So I definitely want to dig more into these different career hats and personas that you’ve been wearing over over the years. But first, let’s shift to to Rayner and you know, it’s always great to hear about UK innovation. So I’d just love to know more. I remember writing an essay about Sahara Ridley designing the first IOL in 1949. And I know he chose Rayner to work with you on this groundbreaking innovation. So walk us through that what what Rayner is and where it’s going.

Tim Clover
So it started in 1910 with an optical retailer in London. And that original optical retailer was the brand that Harold Ridley used for his own spectacles. So when he had this revelation that he was seeing Spitfire pilots with parts of the cockpit shrapnel still in their eye, but seemingly having no negative consequences. He went to the Rayner optician shop and the senior designer there which is gentleman called John Pike. And so Harold really designed this lens together, of which we still have the original in the in the office, which is well I call I have to say that the innovation stop there. So we have sort of display cases full of every type and mixture of potential haptics and designs and optics that you could possibly imagine. I think if one of them had been a lawyer and patented all those designs, you know, this will be a huge business today.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
I want to understand, you know where we’re going with the programs that you’ve designed like eye science and peer to peer. But I think what would be really great for our listeners is to first of all understand, you know, how you’ve adapted to these different roles, because you mentioned you are initially appointed as a non Executive Director, or was it a board member in 2014?

Tim Clover
So I was both so as the non exec director on the board.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
And so you had to kind of do that role, but then transition to the CEO role as well. So how, how was that transition? What did you have to manage in terms of change management in the organization as well?

Tim Clover
So, as I mentioned at the beginning, the organization was slightly schizophrenia because it had hundreds and hundreds of people working in over 200, optician shops. And that’s a very different business to the medical technology time business that we all know, probably the people listening to this podcast. When you looked at those two businesses, it was clear that the optical retail business was being negatively impacted by the advent of the Internet and by the emergence of large retail chains. And so one of my pieces of advice was to sell the optical retailer and to focus entirely on this medtech business. We went through that process and one of the probably one of the unhappy consequences of that is that the factory at the time will be at FDA approved and CFDA was at full capacity and probably, you know, not fit for purpose for what we consider to be occasion for the next generation. So one of the things we had to do is build a brand new factory. And I have to say everybody that advised me at the time told me to build that in China or Vietnam. And we are glad say we ignored all of that advice. And really put our faith in the fact that if you take high tech manufacturing and automate it properly, you can have an efficient factory anywhere in the world. And that’s what we did. So we’re now based on the coast of the United Kingdom. I believe that we probably have the world’s most advanced intraocular lens manufacturing facility anywhere in the world, we’re only about 30% utilized, which scares me sometimes that the place looks so quiet. But then on the other hand gives us this great confidence that we have many, many years of growth to go through that today we manufacture about 1.3 million lenses per year. And the business is that over 30% year and has consistently been for the last few years. So we feel like we’re in a good place. And you know, it’s not even though people know us for IOLs that is only about 37% of our business today. So we have a much broader portfolio including obviously LVDS but also eyedrops for ocular surface disease. We recently acquired a midriff from a Maris Corporation, giving us sort of a wider pharmaceutical portfolio. And very recently, we acquired a significant stake in a recyclable instrument provider. So yeah, the company is growing on on all fronts.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
So this is fantastic. And these are all elements I want to touch upon. But, you know, when I was training, as ophthalmology resident in the UK, I knew of Rayner exactly, as you said, is that IOL manufacturer, so I was quite surprised, to be honest to realize that the portfolio is really diversified, and particularly so late and two elements really resonated with me. Firstly, the foray into patient outcomes by sort of using digital. And secondly, the way we’re interacting with Kol. And making sure you’re having these peer to peer conversations. And then there’s a third one, which is about the sustainability sort of perspective. So maybe you can take us through some of these new elements. And, you know, what was the rationale? How did you manage to bring them to light and you know, what’s any early reaction to these.

Tim Clover
So having having said that, we’re growing and we’ve got this more diversified portfolio, we have to recognize we’re also actually relatively small in the industry that we operate. We turn over a couple of 100 million dollars each year, which is, you know, considerably smaller than our friends at Alcon and Bausch and Lomb and Zeiss and companies like this. So we have, effectively a couple of niches that we operate in. And my belief is that if you’re only going to operate in niches, then your obligation is to be the best in that niche, otherwise, you have nothing to compete with. So some of these other things that we’re adding in, in my opinion, are to strengthen our proposition as being, I hope the leader in that niche. So for IOL was particular a few, you know, if you’re producing an IOL, you really need to be able to provide the best visual outcomes to the patient, you know, via the server. In order to be able to do that, it seems that you really have to be collecting large scale data over a three year period. And our industry is pretty set by N equals 50 clinical studies, which is not giving that granularity of data, and so we set about creating In this digital health tool, they would ideally, give three years worth of patient follow up data for every single IOL implanted. And, you know, my hope is one day IDs ers, if you come up to our booth and asked me what the DIS for top sort of pro trifocal lenses, like, I can click on a screen and say, Well, according to 50,000 patients, oops, 50,001 patients, this is the data you’ve got now, go find anybody that can compete with that depth and substance of data. But of course, that’s only us talking. And we recognize that having, you know, leading KOLS plus high volume KOLs plus emerging KOLs is really the lifeblood of our industry. And I think we were all excited by the webinars that came about by virtue of COVID. But honestly, I think people are a bit bored of that. There’s quite a lot of, you know, jaundice taking place. Now in this such a volume of of activity. So we’ve tried to keep our comms as vital as possible. And that’s represented by this move to peer to peer, which will be a podcast type series. So we’ve got, you know, key leading surgeons that the latest one is called Stonesifer, introducing, you know, leading ophthalmologists and discussing not just Rayner products, discussing things that are relevant to, to all ophthalmologists today. So that’s becoming an important part and to represent you clinical studies really, really hard, hard work, as you know, to get them right and to design properly and execute them. So to do that, we’ve, we’ve created a standalone organization called Eyes sciences, which only focus is to just execute the clinical data and to be able to communicate it in a professional way to to surgeons.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
I love this, you know, outreach and connectivity with all your stakeholders, right. And I think what was really important for me to hear is that you focused on the high volume KOLs, that kind of really kind of respected, experienced ones. But you also mentioned the emerging leaders as well. And I want to understand from you, as well, you know, that recognition that we need to think of the future surgeons of the world. Does that translate into your leadership as well? How do you affect that from a leadership perspective within the organization? And, you know, what plans do you have in your organization to make sure those are there are emerging industry leaders as well.

Tim Clover
Gosh, and that was, that was quite a good transition. So actually, Rayner is going through, we’re at this interesting period, I think, for a company because in three years ago, we had a couple of 100 employees. I knew everyone, and you are able to really say, Well, you know, John, or Susan, they’re the potential for these jobs in the future. And today, we we’ve got about 600 people. And so, of course, you have to introduce systems and processes to be able to help you with that. And, you know, one of the things that I’ve always been a little less kind of, I hate that kind of mission statement thing. Because, you know, unless it’s embedded in your organization, and it means something. And you could ask everybody in the company, what’s our mission statement? And they could repeat it? I think they stand for not much, honestly. So we’ve tried to be very much values driven. And we have a bunch of values, and they’re not terribly unique. You can find them on everybody else’s, you know, websites, honestly, what I think we’ve done reasonably well is embedding those in the organization. So they’re literally everywhere from sort of ID cards on every single PowerPoint slide we do. We have a program which rewards employees by other employees, call the loved program, living our values every day.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Excellent. Love that.

Tim Clover
That’s for everyone out there. I think it’s, you know, that’s something that pulls the organization together. And back to your original question about the sort of future leads to leaders of tomorrow. It’s really important for me, at least that when we’re hiring, it’s not just sort of individual abilities and performance. That matters. It’s also somebody coming into the organization that’s culturally sensitive and in tune with the values of the organization. I need us to stay, you know, agile and intelligent and I don’t think it’s the biggest risk we’ve we face as we move from small company to medium to hopefully large. Keeping that entrepreneurial spirit and that speed is, I think it is not a trivial thing to do.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Thanks for sharing that. And, you know, I think if I can say, looks like you’re doing a good job, because I do see on social media and the various platforms, a lot of your team members are posting about roles that they’re doing, and they seem engaged. And I did notice that for some new starters, they get socks as well, that seemed to be in the Rayner of colors as well. So maybe that’s like, you know, an item that people need to aspire to gain because they they look quite nice.

Tim Clover
I haven’t got. I have to go to HR after this for not giving me a pair of those socks. Clearly.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
You need to fix that. Yeah, for sure.

Tim Clover
I do. I do actually think I mean, funds are an important element, isn’t it? Because when hiring people is kind of hard, and you need to keep people engaged. So I have been advocating for years to hire a fun manager. Sadly, everybody made me change the title to employee engagement manager, but we now have Abigail and she does a brilliant job. And that works globally for everybody. And just bringing people together on you know, step challenges and things is actually it’s an important part of work life balance.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Well, I think it’s filtering through because clearly, people are sharing their perspectives. And I think we all feel now, when we’re leaders or team members or individual contributors, we can share our experience. And it’s very clear that you know, the Rayner experience is something people are enjoying. And I think it’s so important when people can, as you say, have fun and enjoy what they do with passion. And maybe the next transition I can take you to then as you mentioned, kind of the global sort of presence of freedom, and it’s increasing global presence. But sustainability is something that’s also a global problem. So it was very excited to read about Rayners staking as it has to optics from from Belgium. So tell us more about that. Because I’m not sure if everyone would have seen that in the news to tell us more about what that means and why it was important for you.

Tim Clover
So to take two steps back, when we designed Rayner, I was really aware that what we didn’t want to do is get in a fistfight with Alcon or r&d, because we’d lose. I was also a little impatient. And honestly, I didn’t want to wait sort of eight years for the first product come through. So we intentionally designed this organic network around innovation. So even today, we have about 20 PhDs and engineers in house. But we have an external network of you know, over 100 people working on our various r&d projects. And our engagement with surgeons is really, really important. And actually, I think it’s one of the roles that Rayner can play in the marketplace. Because if you are a surgeon, you have a great idea. And you want to bring into an organization to commercialize it, we offer that sweet spot, I think between the larger companies for whom maybe 50, or 100 million of revenue is inconsequential. And the smaller companies for whom finding the funds to do a good job of commercialization is a challenge. So we sit there where we’re sort of small enough to care, large enough to commercialize with access to external capital. So I spend a lot of time and invest a lot personally in developing that, that network. And, you know, it’s the source of every single product we have launched so far, and hassle is actually no different. So the original introduction came through a very well known us surgeon who tried these products, and rang me up and said you need to buy that company, their apps are fantastic. And on top of that they, as far as we’re concerned, are aware. They’re one of the only fully recyclable reusable instruments by virtue of not using any plastics in the production process. So that of course got us interested. And when we met them, we saw a like minded organization with similar values. And that has led to, you know, as taking a significant stake in that company, and we hope together to be able to grow it rapidly over the coming years. But that was something we were interested in generally. And you know, that the organization is focused on making sure that our present credentials environmentally our sound, so, you know, even from the mundane like we’ve got no single use cups in the in the building. We all have sort of reusable cups that are used. We have no single use plastic in the manufacturing process. We’re recycling everything we humanly can like IPA, for instance. So that’s an innovative in house process that we set up to be able to do that. So it’s a thing that I hope is running more and more through the company. It would and honestly, it’s the right thing to do, right. I mean, I haven’t said we are, we are yet to see it impacting procurement. And I suppose that will be the contentious challenge, I would throw out that at some point. Hospitals need to step up and put these on the procurement lists and say, right, we’re going to value environmental factors. And they’re going to have to quantify that value. Otherwise, I don’t see the economic equation for companies to go to that next stage, everyone’s done the low hanging fruit, but to start doing some of these sorts of deeper environmental adjustments, there’s going to have to be a sort of recognition that these things are going to have to be prioritized in procurement.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Yeah, I love the way this conversation is going, I feel like maybe we can, you know, as Brits, maybe we’re naturally a little cynical, or how to get used to the kind of realities of the world. So tell me, you know, we’ve talked very positively about all the great things that Rayner is doing as a company, but and you’ve articulated your value proposition in the IOL space, and in the ophthalmology space more broadly. But tell me about where you see any, any potential challenges or obstacles in the landscape. And I don’t just mean for Rayner as a company. But I mean, for ophthalmology, and you just pointed out that very relevant example about procurement. And I agree with you, you know, we have to take that kind of it takes a village mentality. And it doesn’t always seem like all the players want to play in that nice way. So tell me, you know, from your perspective, as one of the eminent leaders in industry here, where do you see the challenges where we really need to come together?

Tim Clover
Well, the big one is productivity, I think, isn’t it? So you know, there’s a relatively declining number of surgeons, and there’s an absolute enormous growth in the number of patients exacerbated by COVID, of course. But then if you look at the cataract surgery rates, in some of the less developed countries for which I’d include India and China, and you assume some kind of growth towards a mean, there, I mean, the the numbers are just sort of terrifying for the amount of cataract surgery and beyond that will be required in the next sort of 20 years. And I don’t think we as industry, doing a great job of addressing that we tend to create, every new product is slightly more complex, requiring slightly deeper biometry, therefore, probably slightly slower, and more and more and more premium priced. And actually probably what the world needs is a way of moving from six or eight or 10 or 12, cataracts and list up to 20 cataract list. So I suppose there’s going to be sort of three areas of that isn’t the one I suppose digital, which everybody always says, but I think that’s going to be less around technology personnel and more around services, to be able to increase throughputs, I think there’s really going to have to be something about the accessibility of more higher technology implants for the general population. And, you know, my suspicion is generally at some point, there’s going to be a generation despite defined as you know, my God, they walked around with pieces of glass held together to wire on their heads. I mean, it’s kind of extraordinary, if you take two steps back and go, we still do that. I think there’ll come a time when when that won’t happen. And then I suppose the impact of genetics will have a sort of major impact in being able to target more efficiently. therapies for which at the moment, there’s a bit of a blunderbuss approach. I think that personally, I think that that’s sort of the way we look out for the next 10 years or 20 years. That’s some of the key themes.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Now, these are all great things. And I agree with, you know, digital and the shift towards services. And I think one of our other podcasts, which will come out soon, is looking at cell therapy and how we democratize access for the future sort of cell and gene therapies, because you’re right, we can only address at the moment maybe point zero 1% of the population that requires this kind of therapies. And what’s your perspective then just as a sort of interesting, a side question that you mentioned, looking at doing cataracts, maybe 20 30 a day and I know that you’ve got an office in Mumbai, for example. So would there be any rationale to look for those kind of high volume systems like our eventual LV Prasad, and actually, you know, take learnings from that side of the world where, you know, historically it’s seen as less well resourced, but actually way they’re doing things could have direct impact on the way we deliver services here, fused with the technological advances that we’ve got in the UK. So what’s your thought about how we globalize our learnings and services?

Tim Clover
Yeah, I mean, I think if I was involved in ophthalmic services, I’d be taking a very, very close look at those systems. And there’s a number of different varieties of those rights. And, you know, some of them include hierarchies of surgical qualifications doing various parts of the procedure, others are clearly around the procedure of flow through the hospital. So we even but even within Europe, we see this enormous spread from you know, as well as I do, if you go into some NHS hospitals, you’ll be sort of averaging five or six cataracts per list. And then if you go to a hospital around the corner, they may be achieving 15. I think that’s a really problematic difference in productivity when there is such a built up demand. And, you know, at the moment, the independent sector seems to be consuming some of that excess demand, but there’s probably going to come a time when, you know, that’s not sufficient. And the large governmental, really high volume systems are going to have to, you know, find a way of being able to really change their level of productivity by an order of magnitude. And if I was that hospital manager, for sure, I might be on a plane to Mumbai thinking well, at least, at least, how is this performed here? And what learnings Can I can I take?

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Your comments about the NHS just reminded me on the UK NEWS, I think this morning, I heard a snippet on the radio about our National Health Service, one of our ministers is laying out a new platform of digital services where patients can choose where they have non urgent surgery. So I think cataract surgery will be one of those. So to your point about going to a hospital, maybe five or 10 miles away, which can do you know, a far more efficient cataract surgery list, I guess this platform might be informative in that way, but might shift volume of services. So Time will tell how these kinds of deliveries and technologies will actually help patient outcomes?

Tim Clover
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that you always see this huge difference between the General Hospital provision of a specialist hospital provision. I mean, I think longer term if you need to increase productivity, you probably need to go more towards the specialist service provision. And I yeah, I mean, I wonder, I wonder how good the data is at the moment, because the independent sector is, is alive that impressive industry, and I suspect it’s responded quicker than government data suggests. And actually, there may be some surprises coming down the line when when they look at waiting lists and realize actually how many have already been provided outside of the system.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
So today, I feel like I’ve learned so much more about you as a leader, but also as Rayner as organization. Just to remind us, for our audience, who are clearly podcast listeners, when will your the Rayner of podcasts you mentioned? Are they already out? And how do folks want to listen? How did they manage to access them?

Tim Clover
Alright, it’s through peer to peer to peer number two peer. And if you just put that in Google, you’ll find them and I mean, there’s a number of there at the moment. The most recent is, as I said, Carl Stonesifer talking to Bill Taylor, and it’s, I mean, Carl Stonesifer has definitely a second career as a chat show host because he’s so it’s an entertaining podcast, as well as an informative one.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Great, I’m gonna have a listen to that as well. And just one final, maybe comment from your perspective. You know, you’ve done so many different things throughout your career, and I’m sure you’re going to be doing lots more different things going forwards. A lot of our listeners are either budding entrepreneurs or investors or even emerging ophthalmology leaders in the space. Is there one piece of advice or learning you’d like to share with this captive audience?

Tim Clover
Oh, I don’t really see myself in that post. Honestly, to be honest with you, I just I even though I said at the beginning, I don’t like, you know, I wasn’t suited to r&d and I switched my I kind of do and, you know, now I find myself completely and utterly incentivized by developing you know, I hope great products and making great Jobs cuz seeing, you know, creating 400 jobs in three years or whatever is a fabulous thing to do you see the people out there they, you know, it’s paying for school fees and holidays and giving people opportunities genuinely that that, that that’s a level of motivation and we’re so lucky in ophthalmology because it’s this fast dynamic innovation cycle. So I think since I’ve I’ve been CEO for eight years now and I think 14 products we brought to market and I know each one intimately in many of them. I was in the first in AI operation and that’s just such a privilege. So I guess the one piece of advice I’d do is if you don’t enjoy it, don’t bother.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Well said, so. Tim Clover CEO of Rayner, thank you so much today for joining us. It’s been a pleasure and make sure you go to HR for those socks because you definitely deserve to wear those along the way.

Tim Clover
Thank you so much Sophia. Really appreciate it.

Sophia Pathai, MD, PhD
Bye for now.