Leadership

Jeremy Levin, D.Phil, MB BChir, is chairman and chief executive officer 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.

In her role as President and Chief Operating Officer, Meg oversees operations, research and development, program management, investor relations, commercial strategy, human resources, board relations and corporate affairs.  

Meg joined Ovid in 2020 and previously served as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer.  In her tenure at Ovid, she has supported the rebuilding of Ovid’s pipeline and directing its therapeutic areas of focus in epilepsies and rare neurological conditions.  

Prior to Ovid, Alexander had two-decade long career architecting strategies to create corporate value, launch medicines and mitigate risk for biopharmaceutical and Fortune 500 companies. She has guided the launch of more than 25 medicines and shaped major initiatives for leading multinational companies, including Pfizer, Novartis, Amgen, Janssen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Alnylam, BioMarin, Nestle, Coca-Cola and many others. A proven entrepreneur, Alexander 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 was previously named a “Disruptor” and a “Rising Star” in her industry by PM360 and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, respectively. She’s the mom of a wild and intelligent four-year-old and political junky. Meg grew up on Capitol Hill and graduated from The College of William and Mary where she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration.  

As chief scientific officer, Dr. Zhong leads all non-clinical scientific and research activities supporting the advancement of Ovid’s pipeline of potential first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutic candidates. Dr. Zhong oversees Ovid’s scientific strategy, the Company’s research team, and academic collaborations with the goal of accelerating research underpinning the clinical development of the Company’s pipeline assets as well as its ROCK2 inhibition and KCC2 activator platforms.

Dr. Zhong joined Ovid from Generation Bio where he served as Senior Vice President and oversaw DNA Science and R&D operations from 2019 – 2022. He was previously Vice President of Biology at Wave Life Sciences from 2016 – 2019, and led the discovery of oligotherapeutics for central nervous system, hepatic/metabolic, and muscle diseases. Previously, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he established a research site in Shanghai before moving to Boston in 2015 to oversee external research and innovation projects. From 2008 to 2013, as part of GSK’s leadership team for neuroscience R&D, Dr. Zhong established both platform functions and a Regenerative Medicine Discovery Performance unit. He also led the GSK neuroinflammation R&D team, which delivered clinical candidates for several multiple sclerosis clinical studies.

Dr. Zhong started his career at Johnson & Johnson, developing cell assay technologies as well as leading operations and research for the start-up Cell & Molecular Technologies through its acquisition and integration by Invitrogen (now Thermo Fisher Scientific).

Dr. Zhong received his doctorate from The Rockefeller University where he discovered Stat3 and Stat4.