BoB@BIO: Biotech In The Balance With Ovid Therapeutics' Dr. Jeremy Levin

On the Business of Biotech this week, industry veteran Dr. Jeremy Levin, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO at Ovid Therapeutics, sits down alongside the 2026 BIO Convention to talk about why public distrust and politicized institutions are putting the scientific enterprise at risk. We dig into what biotech leaders owe patients and the public, how innovation and capital can migrate out of the U.S., and what it takes to build biotech companies that last. Dr. Levin talks about his recently published book, Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust, what he learned during the writing process, and offers advice for first-time biotech CEOs.  

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

Ben Comer 0:04

Welcome back to the Business of Biotech. I'm your host, Ben Comer, Chief Editor at Life Science Leader, coming to you from the 2026 Bio Convention in San Diego. And today I'm thrilled to be speaking with biotech industry veteran Dr. Jeremy Levin, co-founder, former CEO, and current chairperson at Ovid Therapeutics and chairperson at Opthea. Prior to co-founding Ovid in 2014, he was CEO at Teva and was formerly a member of the executive committee at BMS. Before that, he was global head of strategic alliances at Novartis. Jeremy trained as a -physician- scientist and has been an outspoken biotech leader and sometimes industry critic on issues ranging from patent evergreening, drug pricing, and the politicization of science, among other topics. In his new book, Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust, Jeremy argues that public distrust, institutional and regulatory agency politics, and short-term and perhaps short-sighted investing are threatening the scientific enterprise. We'll talk about Biotech in the Balance and what compelled Jeremy to write it, and we'll get his thoughts on the key challenges facing biotech companies today, China's bigger and growing role in biotech, and what biotech leaders can and should do to improve the ecosystem that enables discovery, development, and commercialization of life-saving medicines. Thank you so much for making the time and for being here, Jeremy. I know you're busy at bio. I want to start off with your background, which we do on the business of biotech. You're a pretty well-known figure. Not many CEOs are willing to speak openly about issues like drug pricing or patent reform or politics and performance at the FDA. And I want to give you an example. I was looking in the Life Science Leader archives, and back in 2019, you told the former editor of Life Science Leader, Rob Wright, that perpetual, quote, perpetual franchises are the enemy of innovation and these need to be called out. You went on to say that companies should be using their cash flow to drive innovation to replace the older products rather than spending money to litigate with the intent of securing a perpetual franchise. Where do you think the willingness to speak out on issues like patents comes from?

Stakeholders Over Shareholders

Dr. Jeremy Levin 2:32

I didn't think that that was going to be your first question. But it's a great question. Whether you speak out on patents, whether you speak out on uh issues of the FDA or otherwise, it comes from something quite intrinsic. And it comes and it actually is critical for biotech CEOs to understand that. I have formed the belief that we have stakeholders, not shareholders, I said stakeholders. Those stakeholders are critical to each company. And they consist of our patients, the public, they consist of those who supply our companies, they consist of our employees, our board members, and yes, shareholders. Each one of those have different expectations. Each one of those has their own particular item and valuation concept. Patient wants to get better, a shareholder wants to make money. Very different concepts. But the one thing they all have is they expect transparency and clarity from the leadership of a company. And so once you say that you are stakeholder focused, it is almost incumbent upon you to speak out on matters that could affect that ecosystem and likely will affect that ecosystem. So it comes from a place of conviction that it is an one is obligated to be as transparent as possible and obligated to be as publicly transparent, even though even though at times you have one part of that stakeholder base saying, don't talk, we want you quiet. You have other members who are important to you, and you need to respect them.

Ben Comer 4:41

Do you think that that one small part that is saying don't say that, or I don't know if it's a fear of some kind of repercussion from the FDA or from the investment community? My question is what prevents other leaders, biotech leaders, pharma leaders, from being more outspoken about these issues? I mean, are they ostensibly they're viewing uh you know their companies from a stakeholder perspective? Maybe they're not, I don't know. But what what do you think it is that prevents people from from speaking up on some of these?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 5:15

Aaron Ross Powell I think overwhelmingly there is a sense of fear. And that sense of fear is misplaced. If the sense of fear is that a shareholder will abandon you and your stock will fall, that's one fear. If your sense of fear is that somebody will harm your children, that's another kind of fear. The first is irrelevant. The stakeholder, shareholder who abandons you because you speak the truth and speak openly is the shareholder you don't want. It's the shareholder who basically should be investing in I dunno. Let's talk about that rockets going to the moon. It's the shareholder who is not one who's looking at this as a long-term industry. And if that is the primary fear, then that sh then you've managed to self-select by your fear and identify that you're afraid of those who see this as a short-term milk-producing industry. Because the long-term shareholder will look at this differently. They will be silent. They'll ask, are you building a sustainable company? Are you vocal about building me something that is voc that is long term? And if you aren't, I don't want you in that role. That's what you should be afraid of. So this boils down, in my opinion, to shareholders who are short term. There is not a patient who's going to oppose your speaking out clearly. There is not a legislator who's could be worried by it because that you know that by speaking out clearly you are speaking to truth and you're speaking to the public, and the public votes. And if your message gets out to the public that you are somebody who is able to talk and is willing to talk and willing to speak out, that message worries legislators, and they react in a way which is sometimes very constructively. They come to you, they ask you questions, they seek you out, and then they adjust. I will go the other way, Ben. We've seen in history where people don't speak out. You see what happens. Yeah. And you can look at the periods that that occur and you can identify exactly what happens because of it. Now the small companies have less of an impact. But the giants, the titans who stay silent become complicit. And let's take an example. In the nineteen thirties, it's a long time ago now, nearly a hundred years ago. Across Europe, the Titans stayed silent. Whether you were in Italy, whether you're in Spain, Germany, everybody stayed silent. And what happened is we saw a horror sweep over Europe. Now had they stood up, had they vocally opposed it, had they used the levers at their disposition, we could have seen a change in history. We didn't. I am convinced that it is incumbent upon true leaders, whether they be a small company or a big company, that speaking out is part of their role. Because if they don't, they become complicit in what then happens.

Ben Comer 9:05

Have

The Real Cost Of Speaking Up

Ben Comer 9:06

you ever had to suffer any consequence for your outspokenness? Yes. Can you tell me like what maybe that consequence was?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 9:16

I can. I've had people say they're selling my stock and my answer to them was please do so. And we place the stock immediately with others. I've also had people say that threaten me. That if I continue speaking in this way, that they will physically come after me. My answer to them is that those threats are understood, but I can't do anything about it. I also hold a very firm belief that when somebody threatens you like that, when somebody is of of is of that nature, then they're afraid. They're afraid that you're right. They're afraid that you will undermine their precepts and their control, so to speak, of what's going on. But there's only one thing in our business that's in control, and that is science. And there's only one truth that matters, and that is based on the scientific method. And there's only one recipient of that scientific method, and that is the patient. And if you hold to that value chain, then whatever they throw at you is irrelevant.

Why Biotech In The Balance Now

Ben Comer 10:48

What made you want to write uh biotech in the balance now?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 10:56

Uh there's a very clear and simple answer to that. But it starts with something that probably people will criticize me for. I love this industry. I believe that this industry is one of the greatest gifts you can give to mankind. That is the ability to change lives, the ability to enrich lives, the ability to really make an impact on the society that you're in. And I think it's a privilege to be here. And I've grown up in it. And I r some somewhere along the line I began to realize that something was going wrong. And we can go back in time as and draw the threads what brought the conclusion that I finally did when I wrote the book. But what the the real intersection was several things that occurred and I believe are no longer cyclical. And that it while we have time to change it, the structural changes that were converging, the disbelief in science, the change in the way that we fund federally fund scientific endeavors and refused and con and link it to politically correct science. That's actually on the deck. The mass firing at the FDA, the really uncomfortable steps taken to disassemble what is the iconic regulatory body and now, thank heavens starting to rebuild after we've started to talk openly about it. And then lastly is the generalized politicization of everything that we're doing, including keeping brilliant minds out of this country, sending people out. These are structural, and often people can say the industry goes through cycles and we recover. This is not the case. In a structural change, it came together by the middle of last year that these structural changes, if continued, would invariably harm fundamentally the thing I most adore, this wonderful industry. And as a consequence of that, I felt it was time to write. There was one other underlying thing, and that was that innovation has never been more exciting. It's never been more rich, it's never been more but full of potential. And it won't stop with the structural change in America. It will migrate. It will go elsewhere, and with it will go capital. And so underlying these structural changes that are happening, what I wanted to do was to alert the leaders in this industry, Congress, and actually if I reach them, the public, that this is not a fluctuation, this is an assault on a strategic asset of this nation, which if it continues, it won't be short term, but if it continues, it will be devastating to our ability to continue to grow the industry. And so biotech in the balance is exactly what it meant. We are in a balance and we can save this if we take steps that are very clear. But we cannot ignore it. And while many people are really wonderfully engaged in what they do, and should be, they need to raise their heads. They need to look at this. But I can tell you there were six versions of it. Okay. The second is that I learned that when you write something, it's not your voice that you necessarily have to project. But you have to tell a clear story that not just encapsulates your ideas, but does it in a way that a person in the street can and should understand because I'm not writing for an expert. And I wanna I am the endless nerd. I can write about science and love science and say you but you don't want me writing that way. You want me to write, when I'm writing a book, to reach into the hearts, the minds, the souls of people. I didn't know how to do that.

Ben Comer 16:45

Aaron Ross Powell I had an I had an editor who would say you should write for your grandmother. And if if your grandmother can't understand a sentence in the article that you're showing me, take it out before it reaches my desk.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 16:58

Aaron Powell Well, I I had I didn't have my grandmother, but I had my wonderful wife. And when I showed her with great pride, my first edition, my first version, she very gently, very nicely put it back in my hands and said, go back and rewrite it.

Ben Comer 17:17

Wow. Well, I would suggest that you're probably a better writer than you think if you went through six different versions, uh, because it means that you cared about the prose and how it read. Um looking for it. Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 17:31

But you asked me what I learned. Um it reinforced my love for this industry. It reinforced the respect for those that I could pull out and exemplify what they did. And they were real leaders, really leaders, people like Regeneron, people like um uh Marigonori and Al Nylum. These are people who are really triumphant. It also reinforced, because the more I read about it, the more I understood it, and the more I was able to articulate it to distill the ideas, that the Titans really need to speak out. And lastly, I would say to you, it brought to the fore the concept that I've always believed in, that we have every time you give a pill to a patient, you change their life. So you have a covenant with the patient, and that covenant is expressed in how you build this industry. And so it allowed me, because I didn't have them at the beginning, to distill my thinking into what ended up as the last chapter, into the ten commitments that I felt that if we could even reach to them, even one or two or three, we'd make a different and better industry. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ben Comer 18:50

Could you give us an example of a couple of those commitments?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 18:53

Sure.

Ben Comer 18:53

I won't make you go through all ten unless you want to.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 18:56

I wouldn't. I wouldn't. It's I let leave people to read it. But the one that is is the breakout one, is what we started with this afternoon, which is about scientific fact. That was an absolutely a commitment that we will defend scientific fact. Because that lies at the core of everything we do. Now there are others, but if you had to if you told me the one thing that I would pull out of all, it's that. Then there are others. It is the commitment essentially to look at us as a strategic asset. There are two or three that add to that. And what flows from that is the concept of a bio-build in the notion in the minds of Congress, rebuilding our industry.

FDA Reform And AI Risks

Ben Comer 19:52

I want to ask you about a couple of uh topics that that you've already alluded to and I know that are in the book. The first one, uh one is China, uh, one is the FDA. Um there's been, I think it's fair to say, more than the usual amount of turmoil uh at the FDA in the last few years. Um I want to start off with maybe some positives first. Uh are there any new regulatory frameworks, um, policies, guidelines at the agency that you think will help the industry bring medicines to patients faster? And I I don't know if it's the newly proposed uh plausible mechanism framework or um I don't know how you feel. I suspect that the Commissioner's national priority review program is probably not one of your favorites. And there's been some issues with transparency and how that program works and what guardrails exist. Well, we can talk speak to that too. But I wanted to ask you first about if there are anything that you've seen at the FDA in recent years that is positive that we can be excited or happy about.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 21:04

Well the overwhelming sense of the FDA is important to put in contexture because when you are blind, a glimmer of light gives you hope. When you have full sight and don't need glasses, a glimmer of light is irrelevant. So but I will ex seize with both hands all initiatives by the FDA and the one came out earlier this week, you already mentioned it. Plausible mechanisms that speed review, that retain accuracy, and are dispassionate. That's why I don't care for the second idea that you part. The commissioners, you mean. Anything that allows for manipulation, anything that allows for even the hint that the FDA can be compromised by political decisions is a disaster. Trevor Burrus Or that an individual is making a decision about a drug. Trevor Burrus That is correct. That is correct. And so I think that I'll take that glimmer, plausible mechanism, and I hope it's going to turn into a Vista.

Ben Comer 22:29

Do you think that the push to improve regulatory time frames using AI is a good thing? And I guess it would perhaps that question really needs some additional context. We'd have to discuss, you know, like exactly what kinds of AI is happening within the agency. And I don't we don't have time to go into that during this conversation. But I guess my larger question is AI is everywhere now. It's moving into more and more parts of our lives. So it's only natural in some ways that the FDA would integrate it into its various processes. Do you see that as a positive thing, at least in what you've been able to see happening at the FDA so far?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 23:10

Aaron Ross Powell So I don't know sufficient detail as to whether it's positive or negative because we've not seen the output. I do know that we can state with emphatic clarity that the FDA has a body of knowledge in paper or in digital, which is unparalleled. Sure. It represents an extraordinary understanding of the mechanisms of diseases, clinical trials, toxicity, and it would be a great challenge to have it create the basis of a decision making tool or help and aid de Camp, a Sherper that leads you up the mountain of approval, which is an AI. Now, if they are doing this in a way that is sensible, bold and data driven as opposed to influence driven, as opposed to assertion driven, then I think we have great opportunity. But without clarity on how the agents are being constructed, the data inputted, what data? There is the opportunity on the one hand to build something fantastic, really helpful, and to leapfrog all other nations. On the other hand, there's the possibility of creating a completely corrupted system. Bad data put with bad algorithms lead to bad decisions. I'm hoping it's the former, but I have no evidence what it is today.

China Competition And Fair Play

Ben Comer 24:54

Let's talk about China for a minute. There's obviously a lot of conversations and lots of deals happening between Chinese biotech companies and uh biopharmers in the U.S. uh and Europe. Do you think that the competition between the U.S. and China uh is healthy and benefits both countries?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 25:15

Well, I love competition on a level playing field. And there are two aspects of this level playing field that are not so level. One is that China has adopted a nearly 30 years strategy, but really implemented in the early teens, 2010, 2011. Made the industry a strategic priority. That is exactly right. As a consequence of that, they are like the football team that started training for the game a long time ago. Right. They know their plays, they know how to get over the end zone, and they have the ball in their hand. Now the other side why it's not a level playing field is because we, at the same time, decided differently. We thought that we didn't even care. Nobody even knew what biotech was. So we lumped it under Pharma, and it became the political pinata, a way of getting votes, criticizing, hammering the industry. So this is a little bit like putting their nut the opposing team taking away their cleats, taking away their helmets, and saying, go play against those other guys. That's item number one. The second is that there are several countries in the world that look at their national priorities and have intelligent services that actually collaborate on a commercial basis with their companies. One of these is France. Another of which is China.

Ben Comer 27:08

And you're talking about a kind of shared infrastructure that raises all bows.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 27:13

It's less well, they're different in both countries, but on one, it's about what are the opponents of France doing competitively? Let's find out about them. Okay. In China, it has been let's source information about how to build things. Now, some of this was open. They sent people here, they learned how to do the FDA, perfectly legitimate, went back and they said they were doing this. Right. Went back and did it. Others, according to reports, was very surreptitious, where data was accessed inappropriately. People took things. That's not a level playing field. And then lastly, what's not a level playing field is that while we in the past have been extremely open to utilizing individuals and allowing individuals to do experiments, work with companies, that's not the same in China. China has a very clear view of who can and can't work with who and has made a decision. So competition is fantastic, but it is only expressed genuinely when you have a level playing field. And we don't today. So number one, I love the competition. I believe it will lead to better innovation, it will lead to better companies, it will lead to sharpening our ability across the board. But you have to ask the question, how do we make sure that we're all working on a level playing field? The other then there's something else. We in America get it's a little bit like, well, we're the king and we've been pushed a little bit. That's okay, that's good for us. What's happened, you mentioned the deals. Well, what that says is that American Biotech, which to date provided 70% of all new drugs to the pharmaceutical companies, suddenly finds that a large company, Bristol Myers Coobe in this case, goes off to China. They are dating another partner. Right. They have d withdrawn their capital, and this is what's important, withdrawn their capital, because they've only got so much from the American biotech system and put it elsewhere. It's a choice. That's their business. They need product, they've made a decision, and remember what I said? Innovation can migrate, so can capital. This is the clearest example of it. And it will there will be more. And so to me, China isn't so much a quote-unquote threat, it's the opportunity lost if we don't understand it, digest what we've been taught, and act accordingly.

Ben Comer 30:26

John Crowley, CEO of Bio, uh, had a press conference with journalists uh a couple hours ago that I attended, and there was a question about um China that was asked to him. I can't remember the specifics of the question, but he essentially said that Bio is totally aligned with Congress and mentioned some bipartisan legislation. I found that a little bit surprising, um, but it made me want to ask you what you think of the recently proposed bipartisan House bill that would require the Treasury Department to review licensing deals, joint ventures, equity investments into China. I believe the the sponsoring um legislature or legislators um specifically cited the BMS deal and um you know some other large deals in China. Do you what do you make of that policy? Do you think it's um good for the industry? Do you think it addresses I don't know that it addresses the unequal playing field necessarily, but what do you what do you think of what do you make of that bill? And granted, it's just uh been passed by or by the House at this point. I I don't know how likely it will be to pass the full you know both chambers.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 31:43

Well, I think John, who is a colleague and somebody I admire greatly, is expressing what I think we all need to see. In other words, protectionism never works. Okay, we know that. But you do need to level that playing field. And if you can't do that through normal trade agreements, then you have to find other tools for doing it. I do not know yet, because I've not seen a final bill if this will go. Not a little bit. It is likely to change enormously. Right. But the thing that it should be, in my opinion, aiming to do is not to stop competition, but to create the conditions for fair competition. And we must stop any sense of withdrawal of technology from one to the next. And the other thing we must commit to is something quite fundamental, is that the prevention of any dual use technology migrating either to China or any other nation. And I know Ben, it's difficult to imagine this, but were we to turn our guns, biological guns, onto creating pathogens that were more pathogenic. Were we to turn our You're referencing the gain of function. Gain of functions, yes, exactly. We should be very cautious about where this goes because there are science is wonderful. Scientific questions are the only thing that really matter, but it has direct human consequences if you take it to extremes. And we've seen that before in other industries.

Innovation Stories From Ovid And Opthia

Ben Comer 33:52

Um what excites you right now about uh development work happening uh at Ovid, at Opthia, or or or elsewhere in the industry?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 34:04

So to understand my whole thinking, I love innovation. I want to help drive it. There are certain areas that I loved that I helped at least to the extent I can. One of these was Immuno Oncology at Bristol. I retained and constructed the belief that immunoncology was the future, and that's why I forced myself into the presence of the executive committee to demand if they could buy Metterex. And they were so amazing. They did. They stepped forward, they took a huge risk, $2.3 billion. Yeah. And it recreated that company. So credit to them for being brave enough to do what one person was completely insisting on, and that initially I'd received huge amounts of opprobrium for trying to do, and a lot of people speaking out against my trying it. But the executive committee of Bristol said, let's go for it. Now that's great. So if you look now, that's innovation and and it's my passion. Ovid and Optia express other areas of this. In the case of Ovid, which is led by Meg Alexander, an executive I think is one of the finest executives in our industry, truly fine, extraordinary person. That I founded that company with one intent, to break open areas of the brain research and drug translation that nobody else was facing. And we failed in the first for a scientific reason. Then we succeeded in the second, and we gave it back to Takeda, who then ran a trial which failed. The drug hasn't failed, the trial failed. That drug will come to its fruition. The first ever drug, I believe, that deals with the metabolism of cholesterol in the brain, and in doing so has the opportunity to phenomenally affect epilepsies. And in Ovid, that journey continued. The journey of how you control and manipulate and understand the role of hyperexcitability. Now Meg has taken that to a different level. We're examining now a known target with a drug which, if it works, will control how GABA is expressed in the brain. It's GABA aminotransferase inhibitor. And if it does, it's a blockbuster. No offense about. Meg is daring to do it. Now, that was brought in years ago. She's got it into the clinic, it's in phase two. Really interesting stuff. And then below that is something completely different, and perhaps one of the greatest innovations in hyper-excitability of the brain. And that's what's called the KCC2 activators. If Ovid is the only company in the world, let me repeat that, the only one in the world who has a a chemically chemical ability using small molecules to activate this incredible transport system in the brain, which balances potassium and chloride and balances how you get excitability in the cell. If it is correct, it has implications for neuropsychiatry, autism, and a host of things that are hyperexcitable. So if you want to know why I'm chairman and I'm excited by Ovid, you've got it there in one. Nobody else has done this. And there are at least two different discrete programs dealing with completely new areas of the brain.

Ben Comer 38:11

Yeah, that's exciting.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 38:12

It is. Optier different. Optier is a lonely company on the other side of the world. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ben Comer 38:20

Yeah. How did you get involved in an Australian rare disease biotech?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 38:25

It came through after they had done a wonderful phase two in ophthalmology.

Ben Comer 38:31

Aaron Powell I would also just interject that Australia, um, along with New Zealand is um has seems to be able to move clinical trials along pretty quickly, get drugs into the clinic very fast. They do.

Dr. Jeremy Levin 38:45

The original molecule, which is what's called a VEGF C and D trap, was a result of research in a lab that probably wouldn't have taken place in this country. Because VEGIF A and B was done. Genentech and uh and regenerate owned the field. Wonderfully so, done great work. Who the heck cares about C and D? Well, I can tell you this. When the first drug in ophthalmology failed, which it did, unfortunately, we don't know why, probably because we saw huge placebo effects, uh huge effects of the old drugs, more than we expected. We had an opportunity to close the company, sell the company, distribute cash, or look at that science of the company. And to my enormous surprise, and it was surprise, we discovered that the science of VEGF C and D had evolved. And that science told us that the these cells, which are smooth cells, on the surface of some of them, what are called lamb cells, are their function is controlled by a number of different things, but amongst whom are VEGF, C and D, which excite a thing called VEGFR3. What happens is then you have a disease that uh often happens in pregnant women, where these smooth cells migrate up through the lymph system, lodge in the lung in the lymph system, become excited, begin to destroy the lymph system of the lungs, letting the lungs leak up and fill with water on the outside of it, or destroy the tissue of the lung. And this disease is terrible. It was considered to be very rare, but we now know that there are at least a hundred thousand women with this. Wow, okay. And they're young. And in the past, if it progress if it progressed, they had to go to lung transplant. Then it was discovered that if you gave them Cirullimus, not a very nice drug, you could damp this down for a while. Now where we are is we suddenly have an opportunity with this molecule, which is called OPT3O2, in optio, that that molecule could hold enormous potential, not just to reverse the disease, to stop the disease, but potentially to reverse it, because what you're doing is you're normalizing the function of those cells. You're trying to see whether or not the lymph system around the lung can heal. And if we do that with an inhaled form of this drug, then we would have done an immense benefit. Now, go back to what I said before. Nobody would have done this. They would have let the company die. But the science told me that we should try and fix this. And that's what I'm doing. I'm letting the science lead me there. The business opportunity is immense, but there is no moral obligation to try a mechanism. But when you see that something could work like this, then there's an imperative to try and make it work.

Board Leadership And First-Time CEO Advice

Ben Comer 42:26

I wonder if you could just briefly describe your role as chairperson at um at Ovidor Optia. Just uh, you know, I'm just curious how hands-on you are, you know, in terms of sort of the day-to-day operations of a company. And maybe maybe it's not day-to-day, but um the the important decisions that are made, you know, around clinical trial design, all sorts of things. But you know, to what extent are you advising, consulting uh with these companies as as chairperson? How involved are you?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 43:01

So you might see myself with my sleeves long, but my sleeves are rolled up. Okay. I've just come from your business development floor. I've had a half a dozen very deep discussions with different companies, and the meetings were led by Meg. With her was a business development friend, colleague, Jeff. My view is that my role here is not to obstruct, it is to advise when asked to attend. My role is to help build the board and ensure that the board's three imperatives are executed compliance, doing the thing that you have to do, which is understand the strategy, and help further that strategy. And lastly, of course, the one which nobody likes, and that is the it ch if you have to to change the CEO. Boards are incredibly important. They can destroy companies or they can make companies. The best ones are those who pick the right CEO, help understand that technology, keep it highly compliant, and then help and that CEO to be successful. They do not run the company. So I don't run the company. Alvid is run by Meg. I will help her in every way that she wishes, and I'll give her observation. She can choose not to do what I suggest, but I know that she'll get the best possible advice. Optia's different. And now has money a significant amount. Very good assets. But a team who was there before who had no experience in this area. So I let everybody go. I downsized the board. I am the consultant CEO. I actually do run, I help design the trials, I help. I help pick the people involved. And as we go through this, being very disciplined about fiscal responsibility, we will pick a CEO. We will pick the right people, but we'll grow based on scientific results, not on some preconceived notion of how a company should be built. Every single person in that company is a committed consultant. Every single person has a very specific job, and we have a set of stage gates which we'll go through. When we get to the last one, we're ready to bring on a team which is going to be successful. It is effectively the kind of things you do in a private company, except this is public. So it's a great opportunity to study how something hopefully goes right. And if it goes wrong, I hope it gives the lessons to everybody that it's worthwhile doing something bold. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ben Comer 45:59

Well, everyone will be watching, right? It's a public company. That's excellent. I wanted to ask one final question, and I think that was an excellent segue to it, which is and I'm tempted to ask how you know what you look for when you're selecting a CEO for Optia. I won't ask that specific question, but I will instead ask you what one piece of advice would you give to a new biotech executive at a startup hoping to progress their development candidates, fund the company, grow the business. What what advice would you give to a first-time CEO who wants to change the world with their medicine?

Dr. Jeremy Levin 46:41

Well, I think the most important thing is continue to want to change the world with your medicine. Thereafters is carefully assess what you are able to do and more importantly, what you're not able to do. Be honest. Look at yourself in the mirror. Hire people who are better than you in doing the things that you cannot do. Make them successful. Because if you make them successful, they will make you successful. And in addition to all of that, retain your values. Be transparent, be honest, never be afraid to confront a bad result. Be open with it. Don't hide it. Deal with it. And then something else which people often don't realize. It's not about you. It isn't. It's about that mission that you described, changing the world. Believe in yourself. Believe that you can do it, but do it in a way which is ethical. Do it in a way that is comports with compassion, but also utter sheer determination. And when somebody criticizes you, listen carefully. It's either something of value, or it's like being savaged by a sheep. Decide which.

Closing And Where To Subscribe

Ben Comer 48:12

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Jeremy. Then it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. We've been speaking with Dr. Jeremy Levin, chairperson at Ovid Therapeutics, and uh chairperson at Opthia. I'm Ben Comer, and you've just listened to the Business of Biotech. Find us and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts, and be sure to check out our weekly video cast of these conversations every Monday under the Business of Biotech tab at life scienceleader.com. Thanks again, and thanks as always for listening.