Takeda Secures Global Rights from Ovid Therapeutics to Develop and Commercialize Soticlestat for the Treatment of Children and Adults with Dravet Syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) (“Takeda”) and Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: OVID) (“Ovid”), a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing medicines that transform the lives of people with rare neurological diseases, today announced that Takeda has entered into an exclusive agreement under which Takeda 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).

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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). Under the new exclusive agreement, all global rights to soticlestat have been secured by Takeda from Ovid. Takeda will assume sole responsibility for further worldwide development and commercialization, and Ovid will no longer have any financial obligation to Takeda under the original collaboration agreement, including for milestone payments or any future development and commercialization costs. Ovid will receive an upfront payment of $196 million at closing and is eligible to receive up to an additional $660 million upon achieving development, regulatory and sales milestones. In addition, Ovid will receive tiered royalties beginning in the low double-digits and up to 20 percent on sales of soticlestat, if approved and commercialized. The new agreement is expected to close by end of March 2021, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including review by the appropriate regulatory agencies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

“I would like to thank Ovid for their thoughtful and productive collaboration. Together we generated positive Phase 2 ELEKTRA study data, and as a result, soticlestat is poised to enter two pivotal trials,” said Andy Plump, M.D., Ph.D., President of Research and Development at Takeda. “Our work together demonstrates the strength of Takeda’s partnership model and our commitment to delivering transformative medicines to patients with neurological diseases.”