Kelly sits down with Dr. Jeremy Levin, Executive Chairman and founder of Ovid Therapeutics, a public company focused on medicines for epilepsies and seizure-related brain disorders. He has a fantastic new book titled “Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust.”  

You write, “If this book has a single message, it is that biotechnology cannot pretend to be a neutral passenger in an age of distrust.” I want you to unpack that, of course, for the specific field of biotech, but I also want to suggest that you could say the same thing for almost any industry that exists in the moment we are living in. Is that right? 

“I think that’s such an astute comment. We have many instances through history where industries chose to be quiet. And I think the rise of national socialism in many of the countries in Europe prior to the nineteen thirties was an example of that. Industries chose to be quiet. And in those instances, by being quiet, they effectively enabled change. And I think that enabling change is of great consequence. And it speaks at the end of the day to whether industries see themselves as purely part of the machine to make individuals money, or they feel they are part of the social infrastructure that builds the democratic nation. And for me, there are several pillars of democracy. And one of them is healthcare. And as a part of healthcare, is the covenant that exists between industry and patients, where you commit to giving them the best possible thing you can do. And being silent when what you do is being rocked is not appropriate.” 

I just had a major surgery, and I remember getting the email with the estimated cost. Now, mind you, it was covered by insurance – but showing that number to my colleagues it was jaw dropping. 

“I’m a great aficionado and love watching The Pitt, because I was actually an ER doctor. I know what it means. But in one of the instances, there’s a patient who is desperately ill with diabetes, who gets repaired and then is trying to get out of the hospital because it’s going to cost a hundred thousand dollars. It’s an extraordinary episode, and it teaches you something we all feel. The distrust that was built between our industry and the public is not new. It’s been growing profoundly. It has grown from the very moment when somebody asked a patient to pay for a medicine. From that moment, the companies that looked at this industry as a business – and let me repeat that, as a business – violated something very fundamental. Yes, you should get paid for what you do. There is no doubt about that. However, there is a whole difference between saying that you are going to pay for this important life-giving medicine and then ensuring that that person will get that medicine without having to be double punished. One, having the disorder, and two, now feeling the abject fear that they cannot afford it.” 

You write about how the foundations of science are so important to understand, especially in an age that is questioning basic science. 

“We created a whole set of infrastructure that most people in this country never see and don’t know very much about. But it became essentially much like the core of innovation in this country. It started the ball rolling, asking incredibly intricate scientific questions, which slowly built up the body of evidence. It’s like building a house. You don’t know what the house is going to look like until all the bricks are assembled. You have a plan, you have an idea, but you don’t know. And it’s like building that house. You built the foundation; you never see that foundation again. Then you built the first walls, and it was all built on those foundations. At the end of the day, if you start questioning those foundations, that house of science crumbles. If you pull out the foundations of science and you say it’s not true, there’s nothing to build on.”