Medical student Jennings Luu is chasing a bold dream: a pill to fight blindness. If he succeeds, it could transform treatment for scores of millions of people around the world who suffer from diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Luu, who co-founded Hyperion Therapeutics in 2022, has been building the ambitious startup with his world-famous mentor in Irvine – a city where brainpower and capital are converging today as never before.
“Whereas other U.S. cities have long been established and are essentially in a steady state, Irvine is younger, more energetic and in its growth phase,” Luu says.
Case in point: Later this year, Luu’s mentor and startup co-founder, biochemical pharmacologist Krzysztof Palczewski – whom UCI recruited in 2018 – will lead a new Center for Translational Vision Research inside a soon-to-open, $200 million facility dedicated to groundbreaking science.
That new Falling Leaves Medical Innovation Foundation building is but one wave in a $4 billion tsunami of investment reshaping Irvine’s health care and medical research.
“This is just an amazing time with these multiple billions flowing in, and the return on investment is better health care,” says Dave Coffaro, CEO of the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce. “For people throughout Southern California, it means treatment options that had never been considered. It also means many more high-paying jobs.”
Research by the American Hospital Association confirms it. Every hospital job supports two additional jobs, and every dollar that hospitals spend ripples into roughly $2.30 of business activity.
Energy in Irvine
In the area surrounding and including the Sand Canyon Medical Corridor, anchored by Hoag Irvine and Kaiser Permanente hospitals, long-promised projects are illuminating like lightning. Each opening marks another advance in the city’s decades-old pairing of master planning with medical innovation.
In August 2022, City of Hope opened a new cancer outpatient center as part of a $1.5 billion expansion that includes Orange County’s only cancer specialty hospital. City of Hope officials say the hospital will open in December, giving patients access to more than 600 specialized physicians and more than 700 focused clinical trials each year. The hospital’s restorative design features art galleries and a healing garden.
Hoag’s Sun Family Campus is reaping another $1 billion in investments, expected to more than double the number of patient beds, with six new buildings, 11 operating rooms, 120,000 square feet of ambulatory facilities and the county’s first 24-hour cancer urgent care. Hospital administrators say the expanded campus will be completed and open late next year.
Roughly 5 miles from the medical corridor, at the northern edge of UC Irvine’s campus, UCI Health will open the nation’s first all-electric acute-care hospital, with state-of-the-art cooling and heating technology, in December.
The seven-story, 144-bed facility is part of a new $1.3 billion medical complex on Jamboree Road that includes two new care centers, surgical and emergency care, wellness programs and access to hundreds of clinical trials. Additionally, UCI Health is collaborating with Lifepoint Rehabilitation to build and operate a new $80 million, 52-bed inpatient rehabilitation center on Von Karman Avenue. The center, designed to help patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury and more, is due to open in summer 2026.
The family that sees well together
Long before construction began, Irvine residents were already receiving world-class care. National surveys by Niche and WalletHub consistently rank the city among America’s healthiest, thanks to fitness-conscious inhabitants, abundant parks and open space – and a modern health care system that keeps raising the bar.
Steve Prough, his wife, Kathy, his two sisters and a cousin prize the expert treatment they’ve received from specialists at UCI Health’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, Orange County’s first academic eye-care center. Their story began more than a decade ago, when Steve’s mother, Nancy Sattler, received treatment for macular degeneration from Dr. Baruch Kupperman, now chair of UCI’s Department of Ophthalmology. The eye institute opened in 2013 and has grown significantly since then.
“It’s incredibly important to have this kind of resource in our own backyard,” Prough said recently. “There’s no reason to drive anywhere else.”
UCI’s ambitions aren’t limited to vision care. The new Falling Leaves center will house 12 interdisciplinary research teams tackling everything from neurodegenerative illnesses to neural circuit mapping to the impacts of environmental toxins – all in addition to Palczewski’s continuing pursuit of cutting-edge ophthalmological treatments, including genome editing for inherited retinal diseases.
“It’s incredibly important to have this kind of resource in our own backyard. There’s no reason to drive anywhere else.”
Steve Prough
Startups meet titans
Luu, now studying at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, is planning to start his residency next year. He has applied to UCI, which would keep him close to his mentor, Palczewski, as their startup plans clinical trials for its proprietary-formula pill. But even if he trains elsewhere, Hyperion Therapeutics is firmly planted in Irvine’s innovation ecosystem.
In 2023, UCI’s Beall Applied Innovation program awarded Hyperion a $100,000 Proof-of-Product grant, providing hefty momentum for the fledgling firm. Luu has also been in talks with Glaukos, an Aliso Viejo–based leader in eye disease treatments, exploring potential strategic partnerships – a prime example of how veteran companies and fresh startups in the region cross-pollinate.
Chasing a cure, building a city
Luu has personal reasons to be grateful for Irvine’s expanding health mission and resources. Some of his close family members suffer from serious vision problems but lack effective treatments. “About 90% of people with macular degeneration have no treatment at all, and 10% need to get monthly shots in their eyes,” he says. “A daily pill would be revolutionary.”
He recalls life advice from a professor: Find something worth working on that helps you wake up eager each morning and sleep peacefully each night.
While for Luu, that something is the hope of curing blindness, he’s not alone in nurturing that bold dream. Throughout Irvine, scientists, doctors and hospital administrators are collaborating to explore new life-changing therapies, giving local residents healthy proximity to cutting-edge care.
The roots of Irvine’s research revolution
Irvine’s world-class medicine wasn’t brought by chance; it was on the drawing board from day one.
In the 1960s, Irvine Company sketched out a brand-new city on 10,000 acres of ranchland, with a new University of California campus at its heart. Fast-forward and UC Irvine now ranks among the nation’s top research universities, fueling discoveries and forging partnerships with local high-tech firms.
Health care was written into the blueprint early. In 1983, the Company donated 15 acres for Irvine’s first hospital at Alton Parkway and Sand Canyon Avenue – alongside plans for a 400-acre medical corridor. That area is now buzzing with multibillion-dollar projects from Hoag, City of Hope and UCI Health.
