atai Life Sciences Makes $50m Investment in Beckley Psytech
Summary
The investment, dated January 3rd in SEC filings, sees ataiwhich is without an in-house psychedelic candidate thats proceeded to Phase 2 studiesgain exposure to Beckleys two primary clinical programs: its intranasal 5-MeO-DMT candidate (BPL-003) under development for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD), and intravenous psilocin (ELE-101) under development for major depressive disorder (MDD). Beckley Psytech CEO, Cosmo Feilding Mellen, said that the two companies share a vision for the future of mental health treatment, adding that we are excited to join forces on the journey to develop effective, accessible, rapid-acting psychedelic medicines for people in need.According to atai, this investment reinforces atais position as the biopharmaceutical company with the largest and most diverse portfolio of clinical-stage psychedelic candidates. atais Chief Scientific Officer, Srinivas Rao, was keen to differentiate between the companys antidepressant candidates on the conference call discussing the deal. When weighed against atais somewhat lethargic in-house psychedelic programsnone of which have commenced Phase 2 trialsits unsurprising that this deal was deemed transformative by one analyst on the conference call. As alluded to by Angermayer, it looks like atai is taking advantage of depressed valuations, too readers might remember that Beckley raised an $80m Series B (upsized from $50m) in the summer of 2021.