Big Pharma's Sanofi Enters Licencing Agreement With Private Psychedelics Company Terran

Terran Biosciences is slowly but surely finding its place in the psychedelics industry. Last week, the company announced a licensing agreement with Big Pharma’s heavy-weight Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY).

Founded in 2017, Terran has maintained a low profile until recently. In early March, the company bought a portfolio of central nervous system (CNS) assets from Concert Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:CNCE), although it wasn’t specified what those assets consisted of, neither by the seller nor the buyer. A few days later, a press release stated that Terran had entered into an exclusive agreement with Columbia University for the rights to the university’s proprietary CNS biomarker platform.

Two weeks ago, Terran also signed an agreement with Blumentech to acquire its full patent portfolio, as well as any accompanying data.

Other than the fact that the company has “over 150 psychedelics patents,” there is not much information about it, especially financial information. However, it is public knowledge that Terran received funding from Noetic Fund, Catalytic Impact Foundation and Transhuman Capital.

Details on the recent agreement between Terran and Sanofi are scarce, but the transaction included two of Sanofi’s CNS assets. According to a press release issued by Terran, these assets “generated 4 investigational new drug applications and over 104 clinical studies involving more than 15,000 subjects.”

BioSpace reported that neurology is not Sanofi’s area of expertise, with only four products listed: one for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; another for multiple sclerosis;  the third one for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy and a BTK inhibitor for three forms of multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis.

Dr. Sam Clark, Terran's founder and CEO, commented: "We are grateful to the Sanofi team for entrusting us to continue the development of these late-stage therapeutics, which we believe have the potential to transform the paradigm in neuropsychiatry.”

Sanofi is one of the few Big Pharma companies getting into the psychedelics market. Two others include Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Atai (NASDAQ:ATAI) ), but this trend is expected to grow in the coming years.

At the Benzinga Psychedelics Capital Conference, Kevin O’Leary said that Big Pharma is bound to find its way into the industry and that some of the biggest companies will have to merge.

Photo: Courtesy of Cytonn Photography on Unsplash