Entheon Acquires Pre-Testing Genetics Platform For Psychedelic Treatment

Psychedelics biotech company Entheon Biomedical Corp. ENBI has purchased biotech company HaluGen Life Sciences Inc. in an all-stock transaction.

Entheon acquired 100% of HaluGen in exchange for 5.1 million Entheon shares.

Why Genetic Testing Is Important: Psychedelic compounds have gained significant attention in recent years for their potential to treat multiple mental health conditions including major depressive disorder, anxiety, PTSD and addiction. 

However, psychedelic drugs have been found to trigger psychotic episodes in individuals with a genetic predisposition to conditions in the psychotic spectrum, like schizophrenia and bipolar I or II disorders. 

HaluGen is attempting to commercialize a test to help identify genetic traits predictive of a patient’s reaction to hallucinogenic drugs. Its platform is expected to help evaluate an individual’s sensitivity and risk profile before the initiation of a treatment using psychedelic drugs.

Entheon CEO Timothy Ko says the acquisition will improve the company’s tools to screen patients for underlying psychiatric disorders prior to undertaking psychedelics assisted psychotherapy (PAP), and gather data linking genetics to outcomes.

“By adding this layer of personalized medicine and data, we seek to add an additional measure of safety and predictability to PAP, and to aggregate data that can be used to infer appropriateness of specific molecules in PAP,” Ko said.