Ovid spreads its wings

With its first two candidates for rare neurological disorders heading towards clinical proof of concept, Ovid Therapeutics Inc. is looking to capitalize on the experience it has gained to find compounds with differentiated pharmacology that can treat adjacent indications. Rather than relying on a unified platform, the company is building a pipeline out of case-by-case examples that use scientific rationale to solve specific symptoms highlighted by patients.

The approach is an example of directly translating back from patient to lab, a concept that is starting to gain ground in early drug development. Whereas most companies start with the biology and look for relationships with human data, Ovid uses its patient network to guide the discovery process. ...