Ovid Therapeutics rockets on news of $856 million soticlestat deal

3 March 2021

US biotech minnow Ovid Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OVID) saw its shares leap 74% in pre-market trading this morning, and still up 33% at $3.94 early afternoon, following its announcement of a lucrative deal with existing partner Takeda (TYO: 4502).

Under today’s deal, Takeda has entered into an exclusive agreement under which it will secure global rights at closing from Ovid to develop and commercialize the investigational medicine soticlestat (TAK-935/OV935) for the treatment of developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, including Dravet syndrome (DS) and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS).’

Discovered at Takeda’s Shonan, Japan research center, soticlestat is a potent, highly selective, first-in-class inhibitor of the enzyme cholesterol 24-hydroxylase (CH24H).

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