Zhong, Malhotra to succeed Nicaise at Ovid

Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:OVID) hired Zhong Zhong as CSO and Manoj Malhotra as CMO, and expanded the role of Corporate Affairs Officer Meg Alexander to include that of chief strategy officer. The company said Zhong, who was SVP of DNA science at Generation Bio Co. (NASDAQ:GBIO), and Malhotra, who was VP, head of medical affairs at Eisai Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4523), together replace former Head of R&D Claude Nicaise, who is retiring. Ovid recently teamed up with Graviton Bioscience Corp. to pursue the rare neurological disease applications of ROCK2.

Chimerix Inc. (NASDAQ:CMRX) promoted Michael Andriole from CBO and CFO to president and CEO, and appointed him to the company’s board. Andriole succeeds CEO Mike Sherman, who will become chairman, as current Chair Martha Demski becomes lead independent director. All changes are effective Aug. 1. Dordaviprone, Chimerix’s most advanced clinical-stage development program, is in Phase III testing to treat H3 K27M-mutant diffuse glioma...