Leadership

Dr. Kaufmann joins Ovid from Vigil Neuroscience (acquired by Sanofi), where she served as Chief Medical Officer and oversaw the company’s medical, clinical, biomarker, patient advocacy and regulatory functions. Prior to Vigil, Dr. Kaufmann served as Chief Medical Officer of Affinia Therapeutics and as Senior Vice President, Clinical Development, Translational Medicine & Analytics of Novartis Gene Therapies, where she played a key leadership role in the development and global approvals of Zolgensma^®, the first gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. Previously, Dr. Kaufmann held senior roles at AveXis (acquired by Novartis) and served as Head of the Office of Rare Diseases Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she helped advancenational research and clinical-trial infrastructure for rare and genetic conditions. While at NIH, Dr. Kaufmann also served as a part-time reviewer for the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Neurology Products. Dr. Kaufmann earned her M.D. from the University of Bonn, an M.S. in Biostatistics from Columbia University, and completed specialized training in epileptology and electroencephalography at the University of Bonn. Dr. Kaufmann trained in neurology and clinical neurophysiology at Columbia University Medical Center, where she later served as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Kaufmann is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

Dr. Manal Morsy joined Ovid Therapeutics in 2025 as Chief Regulatory Officer, overseeing global regulatory activities for the company’s therapeutic programs. Dr. Morsy brings extensive regulatory leadership experience spanning biotech and pharmaceutical companies, with a highly successful history of expediting regulatory and product development paths leading to multiple commercial approvals across multiple indications, drug- and biologics-platforms. Before joining Ovid, she served as Chief Regulatory Officer, Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Vaxxinity Inc. Prior to that, she was Executive Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Athersys Inc. where she tenured there for over a decade.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Morsy spent six years at PTC Therapeutics, where she served as Vice President, Global Regulatory Affairs. At PTC, she built the company’s regulatory function and led global regulatory strategy for multiple programs, including those targeting Duchenne muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis with Ataluren, the company’s lead product candidate.

Before joining PTC, Dr. Morsy held senior regulatory leadership positions at Tibotec / Johnson & Johnson, where she oversaw global regulatory efforts for pediatric development, tuberculosis, and HIV programs, including Prezista. She also served as Director of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs at Merck & Co., supporting new regulatory filings in the U.S. and internationally, as well as supplemental filings for approved products.

Dr. Morsy earned her MD from the University of Alexandria, Faculty of Medicine in Egypt, her PhD from Eastern Virginia Medical School/Old Dominion University, and her MBA from LeBow Business School, Drexel University. She has authored numerous scientific publications in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Biotechnology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Annual Review of Medicine (ARM).

Tori brings deep experience in helping to build biotech companies and brands, with over two decades working across the industry.

Most recently, Tori played an instrumental role in transitioning Frontier Medicines into a clinical-stage organization. As a key member of the leadership team and SVP, Strategy and Corporate Affairs, she led investor relations and corporate strategy, guiding the company through an oversubscribed Series C financing round.

Prior to joining Frontier, Tori founded and led uncapped, a leading biotech consultancy, as part of the GCI Health Group and WPP Companies. During her tenure, uncapped and GCI Health Group experienced rapid growth, helping to guide emerging and leading companies including Nkarta, Apellis, Dynavax, Exscientia and many others. Prior to founding Frontier, Tori served as an Executive Vice President at GCI Health, working with large biopharmaceutical companies on a global scale.

Tori has helped to launch and grow some of the world’s leading precision medicines. Her team’s efforts have garnered numerous industry recognitions and she received MM&M’s inaugural 40 Under 40 award. Tori received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Smith College.

Julia Tsai, Ph.D., is the senior vice president of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Ovid, where she develops, leads, and drives the clinical development strategy of Ovid’s clinical pipeline. She joined Ovid in 2020 as vice president of Clinical Development-Epilepsies and led the transition of soticlestat from Phase 2 to 3 in a joint development program with Takeda. Prior to joining Ovid, Dr. Tsai held roles of increasing responsibility through her tenure at Marinus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MRNS) and was part of the founding clinical development team, which led the strategic growth of the company from inception through its IPO and beyond. She left Marinus as the vice president of Clinical Development, head of the epilepsy franchise, which included experience in rare and general epilepsy programs. Dr. Tsai brings more than 17 years of central nervous system development and regulatory experience from multiple indications within neurology and psychiatry, including: resistant epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder and orphan diseases (behaviors in Fragile X syndrome, West syndrome, Status Epilepticus, CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder, PCDH19 female-related Epilepsies, Dravet syndrome, Lennox Gastaut syndrome and Dup15q syndrome). Dr. Tsai holds a Doctorate in Physiology and Biophysics from the Neuroscience and Physiology program at New York University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cornell University.

Charley brings 30 years of experience to operational finance leadership, financial planning and strategy development, and general management of G&A functions after 25 years in life science executive roles and 5 years of strategy consulting.  Most recently, Charley was CFO of CERo Therapeutics (Nasdaq:CERO) where he prepared the company for a complex deSPAC transaction and helped launch CERo as a public company.  Prior CFO roles include positions at iCAD, Inc. (Nasdaq:ICAD), GI Dynamics, Inc. (ASX:GID), multiple private life science companies, and a variety of consulting CFO projects.  Before entering the life sciences industry as Senior Director of Financial Planning and Analysis at Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc. (Nasdaq:TKTX), Charley was a strategy consulting partner at Mercer Management Consulting.  Charley earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Colgate University and master’s degrees in Molecular Genetics and Business Administration from The University of Chicago.