Boosting Next-Gen Mental Health Care: Enveric's New US Patent For Anxiety Treatment

The USPTO issued a patent covering Enveric Biosciences’ ENVB lead candidate EB-373, a psilocin prodrug under development for the treatment of anxiety disorder.

Issued July 25, the new US patent gives Enveric IP rights for compositions and methods for tryptamine-derived prodrugs utilizing C4-substituted tryptamine derivatives and C4-carbonothiate-substituted tryptamine derivatives. 

The company holds that these enhancements to the tryptamine chemical structure could provide a more rapid onset of action, more controlled therapeutic effect and reduced gastrointestinal side-effects compared to traditional psilocin prodrugs like psilocybin. 

Enveric’s director and CEO Dr. Joseph Tucker poses that, while several tryptamines -including psilocybin, DMT and 5-MeO-DMT- “have shown therapeutic benefit for the treatment of numerous psychiatric diseases,” they are not optimized to induce “consistent and predictable” neuroplasticity, then resulting in intense psychedelic experiences that “are a barrier to widespread therapeutic application.” 

The company is advancing both EB-373 and EVM201 and EVM301 series toward creating innovative, “non-obvious” alterations to related compounds intended to generate neuroplastic changes and work as efficacious treatments for critical mental health disorders while also minimizing unwanted side effects and safety concerns.

Tucker views the enhancement of Enveric’s IP protection covering proprietary assets as “a key growth driver”, and says the team anticipates several of their applications to result in U.S.-issued patents over the coming months. 

In preclinical studies, EB-373 reportedly displayed “efficient” prodrug parameters, demonstrating the rapid and complete generation of psilocin both in vitro and when orally administered. 

Mice treated with EB-373 show dose-dependent induction of head twitch response (characteristic of psilocin,) and in the Marble Burying Test -an animal behavioral model of anxiety- the compound could rescue the enhanced rate of marble burying observed in chronically stressed mice, in line with the control baseline behavior and with long-term anxiolytic benefits lasting 7 days post-dose.

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