According to atai, this investment “reinforces atai’s position as the biopharmaceutical company with the largest and most diverse portfolio of clinical-stage psychedelic candidates”.
It might also be seen in the context of atai’s in-house pipeline, of which the only Phase 2 candidates (GRX-917 and RL-007) are not psychedelics. It does have exposure to Compass Pathways’ Phase 3 psilocybin candidate, COMP360, via an equity investment.
As such, today’s announcement could be seen as a signal that atai continues to explore a model of drug development that’s even more decentralised than its hub-and-spoke ‘platform’ model, that is instead limited to equity investments.
Indeed, in the subscription agreement, atai is described as being in the business of “venture capital investing”.
Both companies described the deal as a “strategic investment and collaboration”. Feilding Mellen suggested that one such area of collaboration might be in the development of “digital tools to optimize patient support”, as well as “planning for future commercialization”.
On the digital tools front, atai’s Viridia Life Sciences is developing DMT “in conjunction with digital therapeutics to deliver efficient, scalable treatments to patients on their own terms.” The digital product is being developed by one of atai’s several ‘enabling technologies’, Introspect.
Taking into consideration both in-house and external drug development candidates, atai’s pipeline looks decidedly more mature following this investment. On the psychedelics side, its two most mature programs are primarily geared towards TRD, though secondary indications and less mature candidates offer exposure to indications such as AUD, opioid use disorder (OUD), and PTSD.
atai’s Chief Scientific Officer, Srinivas Rao, was keen to differentiate between the company’s antidepressant candidates on the conference call discussing the deal. He discussed the following slide: