Dr. Jeremy M. Levin is Chairman and CEO of Ovid Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:OVID), a company whose mission is to bring treatment to patients with rare neurological conditions. Dr. Levin is concurrently the chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). Prior to founding Ovid, Dr. Levin was president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., (TLV: TEVA) Before Teva, Dr. Levin was member of the executive committee Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY). In that capacity he was the architect of and implemented the String of Pearls Strategy, which transformed Bristol. Dr. Levin joined BMY from Novartis (SWX: NOVN) where he was global head of strategic alliances. He has served on the board of directors of various public and private biopharmaceutical companies and is currently on the board of directors of Lundbeck (OMX: LUN). Dr. Levin was voted as one of the twenty-five most influential biotechnology leaders by Fierce Biotech and one of the top three biotechnology CEOs in 2020 by The Healthcare Technology Report. He is the recipient of the Albert Einstein Award for Leadership in Life Sciences and the B’nai B’rith Award for Distinguished Achievement. He has practiced medicine at university hospitals in England, South Africa, and Switzerland. Dr. Levin earned his bachelor’s degree in zoology and a master’s degree and doctorate in chromatin structure, at the University of Oxford, and thereafter his medical and surgical degrees from the University of Cambridge where he won the Kermode Prize for his work on Captopril. 

Authors of individual chapters 

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 

Vicki L. Sato, Stelios Papadopoulos, Sam Waksal, Bill Sibold, Frederick Frank Q&A with a Biotech Pioneer, Brook Byers, Sol Barer 

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES 

Michelle McMurry-Heath, Andy Plump, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Karen Bernstein, Ron Cohen, Samantha Du, Cedric François 

THE VIEW FROM INSIDE COMPANIES 

George Scangos, John Young, Stéphane Bancel, Jean-Pierre Sommadossi, John V. Oyler, Paul Hastings, Christi Shaw, John Maraganore, Rachel King, Richard Pops, Deborah Dunsire 

BROAD LESSONS 

Kenneth I. Moch, Quita Highsmith, Luke Rosen, Sylvia Wulf, Philip Miller, Alex Zhavoronkov and Evelyne Bischof 

LEADERSHIP 

Jeffrey M. Solomon, Julie Louise Gerberding, Jeff Berkowitz, James Greenwood 

INVESTOR PERSPECTIVES 

Nina Kjellson, Bruce Booth, Alexander Karnal, Mark Lampert, Geoff Porges 

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE 

Peter Kolchinsky, Yaron Werber, Jeff Kindler, Otello Stampacchia

The books Annie recommends:

Maria Konnikova

The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

Don A Moore

Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely

Peter on Twitter: https://twitter.com/peterkolchinsky

The book's website: https://peterkolchinsky.com/bio

Link to the Katherine Eban discussion: 

For more on JLABS, go to https://jlabs.jnjinnovation.com/JLABSNavigator#/

As Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS), Melinda Richter fosters the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies external R&D engine and supports the innovation community by creating capital-efficient commercialization models that give early stage companies a big company advantage. By providing infrastructure, services, educational programs and networks in global hotspots, JLABS is the best place to start a company working in healthcare, with a specific emphasis on Johnson & Johnson’s sectors: consumer, medical device and pharmaceuticals.

Prior to joining JLABS, Melinda was Founder and CEO of Prescience International, an award-winning firm dedicated to accelerating research to the patient. Melinda founded Prescience after she had a medical emergency that left her questioning the efficiency and efficacy of the healthcare system. With the tenacity and resolve of a patient looking for a better solution, she set out to create a better model, which now forms the basis for JLABS’ operational infrastructure. Prior to starting Prescience, Melinda held posts across a variety of functional areas with a global corporation, Nortel Networks, in locations such as Research Triangle Park, New York, Toronto, London, Hong Kong and Beijing before arriving in San Francisco. She also initiated, raised capital and secured large corporate deals for several companies in both the life science and technology space. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and a MBA from INSEAD in France. Melinda is an active board member and Treasurer of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA).

Links to the papers we discuss

• Diagnosing the Decline of Pharmaceutical R&D efficiency (2012): https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd3681
• When Quality Beats Quantity: Decision Theory, Drug Discovery, and the Reproducibility Crisis (2016): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147215
• Pharmaceutical Evolution: Clinical Selection versus Intelligent Design: https://www.innogen.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-08/Innogen-Working-Paper-115.pdf

Jack can be contacted at [email protected]

Then the books Jack refers to:

• Robert Gordon: The Rise and Fall of American Growth
• James Le Fanu: The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine
• Dino Buzzati: The Tartar Steppe

• Why Boston/ Cambridge and South San Francisco?
• Why not New York?
• Cultures of innovation
• The new way, scaling start-ups
• Critical factors for biotech hubs
• Europe/ The UK and the rest of the world
• Where does innovation come from? How is it defined?