Biopharma Ovid Therapeutics (NSDQ:OVID) has named MIT professor Robert Langer as the chairman of its scientific advisory board.
The company focuses on rare neurological diseases.
“The neurosciences are on the cusp of a scientific and, hopefully, therapeutic revolution,” said Langer in a statement. “Ovid has an exciting approach to tackling the key questions that drive scientific research and new medicines in the central nervous system.”
Langer has played a leading role in the healthcare sector, becoming one of the first chemical engineers to specialize in drug delivery, tissue engineering and diabetes.
Langer’s academic work had been cited 338,000 times, making him the most frequently cited engineer in history.
Robert Langer
He has more than 1,400 granted or pending patents.
Ovid Therapeutics has struggled in recent years to convince investors that its lead candidate OV101 (gaboxadol) had potential for treating Angelman syndrome and fragile X syndrome. Both are genetic disorders that can cause intellectual disability. In April, disappointing Phase 3 results led the company to discontinue the development of OV101. In that trial, the placebo group fared slightly better than the treatment group.
The company decided to increase its focus on other drugs in its pipeline, such as OV882, a short hairpin RNA therapy, as a possible Angelman syndrome treatment.