Atai Partners With Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital For Psychedelics Research

Atai Life Sciences t announced on Tuesday a new research collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.

The partnership will help advance the hospital’s Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics, a recently-launched center focused on studying the mechanisms behind the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, with the aims of developing novel mental health treatments.

“This collaboration may lead to the discovery of novel mechanisms of neuroplasticity and development of more targeted treatments for mental illnesses, thereby pioneering the new frontier of precision mental health,” said Atai Co-Founder and CSO Srinivas Rao.

Atai’s platform model provides funding, technology, scientific and regulatory resources to a portfolio of at least 11 companies. Atai is an early investor in Compass Pathways CMPS, owning about 29% of its stock before the latter’s IPO last September.

The company also supports a number of other psychedelics companies researching DMT, arketamine, MDMA, ibogaine and other compounds, as well as novel models for mental health treatment.
Atai, which holds a stake in various psychedelics companies, closed a $125 million series C round in late November. The Berlin-based biotech firm is expected to make a debut on the NASDAQ in the near future, but no official confirmation has been issued yet.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.