Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (OVID) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. I'm Jeremy Levin, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Ovid Therapeutics. And it's my great pleasure to welcome you to the company's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. It's now 11 a.m., and I'll call this meeting to order and proceed with introductions and formal business of the annual meeting. I'd like to start off by thanking everybody for joining us today. Please let me introduce to you the members of our senior management team present today: Dr. Amit Rakhit, President and CMO; Mr. Thomas Perone, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Mr. Jeff Rona, Chief Business and Financial Officer; Mr. Jason Tardio, Chief Commercial Officer. We're also pleased to introduce the other members of our Board of Directors who joined us today: Ms. Barbara Duncan and Mr. Bart Friedman. I'd also like to introduce Thomas Klockner, Beth Raposo, Matt Interrante of KPMG LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, who is available to respond to appropriate questions. And finally, the company has appointed Peter Descovich to act as inspector of election. Mr. Descovich has taken and subscribed the customary oath of office to execute his duties with strict impartiality. We'll file his oath with the records of the meeting. The inspector of election will decide upon the qualification of voters; accept their votes; and when balloting on all matters is complete, tally the final votes. To ensure that we satisfy all of the legal requirements of today's meeting, the formal portion of the meeting will be conducted from a script, and we will answer any questions at the end of the meeting. [Operator Instructions] The record date of this meeting was April 15, 2021. I have at this meeting a complete list of stockholders of record at our -- of our common stock at the close of business on such record date, which holders were entitled to notice and are entitled to vote on the matters brought before this meeting. The list is available to you on the bottom right of the web portal for the meeting. I also have an affidavit certifying that, on April 30, 2021, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. commenced the mailing of or otherwise distribution of notice of the annual meeting and notice of Internet availability of proxy materials to all stockholders of record at the close of business on April 15, 2021. I've been informed by the inspector of election that a majority of the outstanding shares entitled to vote at the meeting are either represented virtually or by proxy and accordingly which constitutes a quorum for the meeting today. Thus, we may now carry on the official business of the meeting. I will now describe the voting procedures. The time is now 11:05 a.m. on June 10, 2021, and the polls are now open for voting on all matters to be presented. Any stockholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on their web portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. The polls will be closed to voting after we go through the matters to be voted on. We will not accept ballots, proxies, revocations or changes of votes after the closing of the polls. [Voting]

There are 2 proposals to be voted upon at this meeting. The first item of business is the proposal to elect a Class I director to the company's Board of Directors to hold office until the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The nominee for Class I director is Barbara Duncan. The second item of business today is the proposal to ratify the selection of KPMG LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for the company's fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2021 Ovid therapeutic annual shareholder meeting closed at 11:07 a.m. I will now turn over to our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Thomas Perone.

Good morning, everyone. I now have the pleasure of reporting the results of voting. Based upon the submission of Internet voting, the proposal one, election of director, Barbara Duncan, we have 27,065,759 votes for, 0 against, 6,894,669 withheld and 19,036,051 votes -- broker non-votes. Proposal -- the director nominee has been elected by the majority of votes cast. Now with respect to proposal two, ratification of KPMG LLP as our independent registered public accountant, we have 52,384,946 votes for, 483,586 votes against. And 127,947 votes were abstained. The appointment of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 fiscal year has been ratified. A record of the votes for this meeting will be filed with the company's records, and a certificate of inspection of election will be attached to the minutes of this meeting. With that, I turn it back over to our Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Levin.

Thank you, Tom. With the formal portion of the agenda now complete and there being no other business to be brought before the meeting, I'll now adjourn the formal portion of Ovid's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We'd now like to open things up for stockholder questions and comments. We'll address these questions that we receive on the web portal in the order in which they were received. As I don't see questions to be answered, and just confirming that with our General Counsel, with the agenda now complete and there being no other business to be discussed, I will now conclude the meeting. And thank you for your attendance.