ATAI Life Sciences Announces New Program To Discover Next-Generation Mental Health Treatments

atai Life Sciences ATAI on Thursday announced Invyxis, a new program to accelerate the company’s portfolio of compounds.

What Happened: The clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing mental health treatments using psychedelic therapy said Invyxis would be its third approach to generating new compounds that improve the efficacy and safety of mental health treatments, joining EntheogeniX and TryptageniX.

atai utilizes AI-powered chemistry in its EntheogeniX program, biosynthesis in TryptageniX and now high-throughput discovery chemistry through Invyxis. 

atai said it would use Invyxis in tandem with EntheogeniX and TryptageniX to continue to find and develop revolutionary compounds to give patients access to treatments that are not currently available on the market.

“Our existing programs include EntheogeniX, specializing in AI-powered drug design, and our more recent addition TrytageniX, which focuses on generating new compounds using biosynthetic approaches,” atai Chief Scientific Officer Srinivas Rao said in a statement.

“Invyxis complements these efforts, using medicinal chemistry and comprehensive biological screening capabilities to atai's discovery efforts. Multiple orthogonal approaches to developing new compounds will be central to developing truly differentiated treatments required to meet the broad heterogeneity of mental health patients.”

atai is among the leaders in the growing space of psychedelic therapy, working on treating various mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression and PTSD.

Pandemic Has Escalated Need For Such Treatments: The company said it recognizes the need for these new treatments, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the mental health crisis.

“Through the pandemic, the mental health crisis has further escalated. We now more than ever are in desperate need of better treatment options for patients," CEO & co-founder Florian Brand said. “At atai, we know - many of us first hand - how many people are currently left behind. With Invyxis, we will be working on the discovery of the next generation of mental health treatments and expanding our IP portfolio."

Why It Matters: Despite growing mental health issues around the world, treatments have largely stagnated. Invyxis would allow atai to further its IP portfolio and expand the drugs in the company’s pipeline, and ultimately aid the company in its goal of alleviating the adverse effects of mental health issues.

Price Action: atai shares traded 3.48% higher at $5.05 in the pre-market session on Thursday.