Dalriada will be leveraging atai Life Science’s newly launched Invyxis platform to establish and rapidly advance a pipeline of new chemical entities (NCEs) in mental health.
The strategic partnership will focus on developing NCEs designed to improve upon current compounds in clinical and preclinical development to treat mental health disorders.
Atai’s Invyxis platform is developing next-generation small molecule therapies based on psychedelics and related compounds. The partnership’s initial work will focus on designing novel compounds aimed at the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor with other central nervous system (CNS) targets to follow.
Dalriada chief executive and co-founder, Diana Kraskouskaya, commented: “We are delighted to be working with atai, a company equally relentless in their pursuit of better medicines.
“An agile approach is a key factor for success and Dalriada brings this to the collaboration by providing our Turn-Key™ drug discovery resource that includes R&D expertise, infrastructure, and highly skilled scientific teams spanning medicinal chemistry, biology, bioanalytical and computational chemistry.”
Read more: atai launches programme for social change
The collaboration also includes the creation of a substantial pharmacology platform that will enable deep interrogation of known and novel compounds at a target level. Dalriada will assume responsibility for the discovery R&D programmes, including the hit identification, hit to lead and lead optimisation stages up to the nomination of the development candidate. atai will be responsible for the preclinical and clinical development.
Dalriada’s CSO, Professor Patrick Gunning, said: “There is a significant opportunity to deliver enhanced small molecule therapies building on the existing and emerging knowledge of psychedelics’ mechanism of action.
“Our work with Invyxis will add proven and innovative biological and medicinal chemistry capabilities to grow atai’s portfolio of NCEs. We look forward to innovating with this global leader in psychedelic therapeutics to deliver much needed and improved treatments for mental health.”
Co-founder and CEO of atai, Florian Brand, added: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Dalriada as we launch Invyxis. Dalriada brings exceptional expertise in NCE discovery that complements atai’s existing drug discovery and clinical development capabilities.
“Invixys will enable us to further build out our pipeline and bring forward revolutionary new treatments to mental health patients in need.”
[activecampaign form=52]
