Jeremy Levin’s Ovid Therapeutics and NeuroPointDX have signed a new collaboration that sees the pair seek out new biomarkers of the rare disorder Angelman syndrome.
Ovid and the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech will combine forces on the neurological syndrome, a genetic disorder that can cause delayed development, seizures, sleep problems and a host of other conditions.
It has no FDA-approved therapies, but the biotechs will use NeuroPointDX’s metabolomics platform tech to “identify differences in children with autism spectrum disorders compared to typically-developing children and between subgroups of children on the spectrum for earlier diagnosis and more precise treatment,” they say in a statement.
Metabolomics can look at even minor changes in small molecules present in the metabolism of patients, which can help shine a light on the physiology of a disease and the response to treatments. This tech will be put to use in Ovid’s ongoing, placebo-controlled phase 2 STARS trial by analyzing the metabolomic profile data coming out of the test.
Its candidate, OV101, is a delta-selective GABA-A receptor agonist and is being developed to help restore tonic inhibition in patients living with Angelman syndrome.
“With the initiation of the STARS trial and this collaboration, we are making important progress in better understanding Angelman syndrome and developing much needed treatment options,” said Matthew During, M.D., president and chief scientific officer of Ovid. “The metabolic profile of this syndrome is not well understood, and we believe this biomarker study will produce critical data to fill this gap and inform us about the impact of OV101 as a potential treatment option.”