Inaugural Retina Race a great success

The Arena Civica, Parco Sempione, was the location for the inaugural Retina Race, which took place during the 12th EURETINA Congress in Milan. The race was held in aid of ORBIS, organised by EURETINA and kindly sponsored by Alcon and Novartis. Approximately 75 runners registered to take part and 56 ran on the day, with ophthalmologists and industry colleagues across all levels from around the world taking part. There were eight categories, split across age and gender, with runners varying in age from 23 to 63 years, so there were plenty of medals to be won. Emilio Fernandez, a Spanish sales executive with Novartis, was the overall winner with a very impressive time of 18 minutes and 33 seconds. Stephane Wolf, global associate brand director, Lucentis at Novartis, praised those who took part in the race and said he hoped the race would continue to grow with more ophthalmologists taking part when it is held in Hamburg, Germany to coincide with the 13th EURETINA Congress. “We are extremely proud so many people turned up today for this charity event. It was a beautiful inaugural race, which will be held every year now and we are sure in 10 years’ time there will be thousands of runners and we are sure people will look back on this day,†said Clemens Jakobi, region Europe franchise head ophthalmics, Novartis.