board of directors
Jeremy M. Levin, D.Phil, MB BChir
Co-founder and Executive Chairman
Jeremy Levin, D.Phil, MB BChir, is co-founder and executive chairman of Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: OVID), a public company developing novel medicines to treat epilepsies and seizure-related disorders. Dr. Levin is concurrently the chairman of Opthea (NASDAQ: OPT). Prior to founding Ovid, Dr. Levin was president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., (TLV: TEVA). Before Teva, Dr. Levin was a member of the executive committee Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY). In that capacity, he was the architect, lead and implementer of the String of Pearls Strategy, which transformed Bristol and facilitated the dawn and massive growth of the immuno-oncology revolution in the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Levin joined Bristol from Novartis (NYSE: NVS), where he was the global head of strategic alliances. He has previously served as a member of the board of directors of various public biopharmaceutical companies, including Biocon Ltd. (NSE: BIOCON) and Lundbeck (OMX: LUN). Dr. Levin also serves on the board and executive committee of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) as the immediate past chairman.
Dr. Levin was voted as one of the 25 most influential biotechnology leaders by Fierce Biotech, one of the top three biotechnology CEOs by The Healthcare Technology Report and one of the PharmaVoice100 CEOs in 2020 and 2021. He was selected by Endpoints in 2021 as one of the 60 living pioneers of the industry. He is the recipient of the Albert Einstein Award for Leadership in Life Sciences and the B’nai B’rith Award for Distinguished Achievement. In June 2020, he edited and published the best seller “Biotechnology in the Time of Covid-19”. Dr Levin has been widely quoted and interviewed in national and international news outlets and life science industry-related publications. He believes that the role of leaders in business is to take a public stand on public policy matters as a core part of their business strategy and responsibility to shareholders, industry and society. He is committed to a public stance on key aspects of society and industry, including, but not limited to: encouraging immigration; policies that drive innovation; patient access to medicines; the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion; the primacy of medicine and science as the sole determinants to develop medical products; and the democratic right to vote for all citizens.
Dr. Levin has practiced medicine at university hospitals in England, South Africa and Switzerland. Dr. Levin earned a First-Class Bachelor in Zoology, winning the University Prize, and subsequently, was awarded a master’s degree and doctorate in chromatin structure, at the University of Oxford. Thereafter, he earned his medical and surgical degrees from the University of Cambridge, where he won the Kermode Prize for his work on Captopril.
Meg Alexander
President & Chief Executive Officer
Meg Alexander is an experienced biotech builder who has played a critical role in advancing more than two dozen therapies from development to market. She has consistently led complex initiatives and cross-functional teams, playing a key role in driving growth and strategic transformation at some of the industry’s most prominent companies. As the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Ovid Therapeutics, she oversaw enterprise operations and lead the company’s evolution into a focused, clinically driven organization delivering innovation for patients with neurological disease.
Since joining Ovid, Meg has helped reshape the company’s pipeline and strategic direction. Her leadership has been central to refining Ovid’s focus and building the infrastructure needed to support long-term, sustainable growth.
Prior to Ovid, Meg spent over two decades guiding biopharmaceutical and Fortune 500 companies through critical growth phases, with a focus on product launches, risk mitigation, and enterprise value creation. She has played a key role in supporting the development and commercialization strategies for companies such as Pfizer, Novartis, Amgen, Janssen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Alnylam, and BioMarin, and guided global consumer brands like Nestlé and Coca-Cola. A proven entrepreneur, Meg founded, and scaled, the highly successful Reputation and Risk Management business at Syneos Health, one of the world’s largest clinical and commercial resource organizations.
Meg believes in the power of people and teams to create success. She has been recognized as a “Disruptor” by PM360 and a “Rising Star” by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
Meg holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from The College of William and Mary and lives in New York.
Karen Bernstein, Ph.D.
Director, Chair of the Compensation Committee, Member of the Audit and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees
Karen Bernstein, Ph.D., is co-founder and chairman of BioCentury Inc. and was Editor-in-Chief from October 1992 to August 2015. She is a director at Ovid Therapeutics Inc., which is focused on developing drugs for orphan diseases of the brain, and at Codiak BioSciences Inc., which is pioneering exosome research and development to create an entirely new class of medicines, exosome therapeutics. She is on the board of trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) of the Applied Life Sciences and is a member of the board of advisors of KGI’s School of Pharmacy. She serves on the board of overseers of Scripps Research.
She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and History from Brandeis University, where she served for many years as a member of the Brandeis University Science Advisory Council.
In 2005, the annual gathering of biotechnology chief executive officers at The Biotech Meeting in Laguna Niguel, Calif., inducted Karen into their Hall of Fame, citing her lifetime contribution to the biotech community. In 2007, Karen received a Special Recognition award at the American Liver Foundation’s Salute to Excellence, honoring individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to biotechnology and medical innovation. In 2013, she was named as one of the 100 Women of Influence in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. In 2015, Scientific American named Karen as one of The WorldVIEW 100 most influential people in biotech today. In 2016, she was named Commentator of the Year by the European Mediscience Awards.
Barbara G. Duncan, MBA
Director, Chair of the Audit Committee, Member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee
Barbara Duncan, MBA, has been a member of Ovid’s board of directors since June 2017. She previously was the chief financial officer and treasurer at Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ICPT). Prior to Intercept, Ms. Duncan held various senior leadership roles of increasing responsibility at DOV Pharmaceutical Inc., including chief financial officer, and ultimately, was chief executive officer prior to DOV’s sale to Euthymics Bioscience Inc. in 2010. Ms. Duncan has also held roles in the corporate finance groups at SBC Warburg Dillon Read Inc. and Lehman Brothers Inc. She serves on the board of directors of Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ADAP), Jounce Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNCE), Area Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVIR), and Fusion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ, FUSN). Ms. Duncan received her Bachelor of Science from Louisiana State University and her Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Bart Friedman, J.D.
Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Member of the Audit and Compensation Committees
Bart Friedman, J.D., has been a member of Ovid’s board of directors since November 2015. Mr. Friedman was a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, a New York law firm, from 1980 through 2017, when he became senior counsel. Mr. Friedman’s practice focuses on corporate governance investigations and advisory and crisis advisory. Earlier in his career, Mr. Friedman worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission and acted as a liaison to other departments in the government. Mr. Friedman has served as chairman of the board of directors of the Sanford C. Bernstein Mutual Funds and as the lead director of the board of directors of Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, AG (NYSE: AWH), a publicly held company. He currently serves as chair of the audit committee of the Brookings Institution, chair of the audit committee of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and as chair of the Guggenheim Museum’s Works and Process Program. Mr. Friedman has also served as vice chair of the Juilliard School and as a member of the Visiting Committee of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Mr. Friedman is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and serves on the membership committee of the Council. He has also served as a member of Council on Foreign Relations delegations to many countries and institutions, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lybia, Turkey, and NATO among others. He has also served as a member of CFR Task Forces on issues ranging from nonlethal weaponry to resources for foreign aid. Mr. Friedman earned his Bachelor of Arts from Long Island University and his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. He also served as a research associate at Harvard Business School.
Kevin Fitzgerald, Ph.D.
Director, Member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee
Dr. Fitzgerald has over 20 years of successful drug discovery experience and currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President and Head of Research at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. He joined Alnylam in 2005 after a seven-year tenure at Bristol Myers Squibb. At Alnylam, Kevin and his teams discovered and clinically validated two different modes of siRNA delivery, and he has been instrumental in the development of a novel pipeline of approved and progressing RNAi therapeutics. Dr. Fitzgerald is a prolific inventor. His co-inventorship responsibility includes many of Alnylam’s marketed and pipeline programs. He has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, which have been published in prestigious journals including, Nature, Cell, and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Stelios Papadopoulos, Ph.D.
Director, Member of the Audit and Compensation Committees
Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Exelixis, Inc., Regulus Therapeutics, Inc. and Epikast, Inc., and a member of the board of Graviton Biosciences Corp. He is a co-founder of Exelixis and Epikast, as well as co-founder and former Chairman of Anadys Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Hoffman–La Roche in 2011) and Cellzome (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline in 2012). Until June 2023 Dr. Papadopoulos was the Chairman of Biogen having joined that board in 2008. In the not-for-profit sector, Dr. Papadopoulos is co-founder and Chairman of Fondation Santé (www.fondationsante.org), a foundation providing research support and mentorship to biomedical scientists in Greece and Cyprus.
Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos spent six years (2000-06) at Cowen & Co., LLC, most recently as Vice Chairman, where as an investment banker he focused on the biotech and pharma sectors. Prior to joining Cowen, he spent 13 years as an investment banker at PaineWebber, Incorporated where he was most recently Chairman of PaineWebber Development Corp., a PaineWebber subsidiary focusing on biotechnology. He joined PaineWebber in 1987 from Drexel Burnham Lambert where he was an analyst in the Equity Research Department covering the biotechnology industry. Prior to Drexel, he was the biotechnology analyst of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Before coming to Wall Street, Dr. Papadopoulos was on the faculty of the Department of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine. He holds an M.S. in physics, a Ph.D. in biophysics and an M.B.A. in finance, all from New York University.