ATAI Life Sciences

ATAI Life Sciences is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, established in 2018 by founders Christian Angermayer, Florian Brand, Srinivas Rao, and Lars Christian Wilde. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, the company operates with the mission to address the unmet needs in mental healthcare by developing psychedelic and non-psychedelic therapeutics. The company went public via an IPO on the NASDAQ exchange in June 2021 under the ticker symbol 'ATAI'.

The founding team combines diverse expertise. Christian Angermayer, an entrepreneur and investor, founded Apeiron Investment Group and has a track record of creating and investing in successful companies across technology and life sciences. His interest in psychedelics was sparked by a personal experience that he described as profound, leading to his conviction that these compounds could be instrumental in tackling the global mental health crisis. Srinivas Rao, M.D., Ph.D., serves as the CEO and brings over two decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. His background as an engineer, coupled with a Ph.D. in neurobiology and an M.D. from Yale, drives his problem-solving approach to drug development for complex brain disorders.

ATAI operates on a decentralized platform model, functioning as a company builder that acquires, incubates, and supports a portfolio of companies. This structure allows it to diversify risk across a broad portfolio and accelerate drug development by providing financial and strategic support to its subsidiaries. The business model is focused on developing disease-altering therapies for mental health conditions that often do not respond to existing treatments, such as treatment-resistant depression (TRD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), and cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia. Revenue is anticipated through milestone payments, royalties from the commercialization of successful drugs, and potential licensing agreements.

The company's therapeutic pipeline is a mix of psychedelic and non-psychedelic candidates. Key programs include VLS-01 (DMT) for treatment-resistant depression and EMP-01 (R-MDMA) for social anxiety disorder, both of which are in Phase 2 trials. The pipeline also features BPL-003 (a short-duration intranasal formulation of mebufotenin benzoate) for TRD, which has shown rapid and durable antidepressant effects in a Phase 2b trial. ATAI is also developing non-hallucinogenic compounds and digital therapeutic tools to complement its treatments. The company strategically manages its pipeline, prioritizing promising programs and forming partnerships, such as a planned merger with Beckley Psytech, to strengthen its position in the field.

Keywords: psychedelic medicine, mental health treatment, biopharmaceutical, clinical-stage, depression therapy, anxiety treatment, addiction treatment, drug development, neurobiology, Christian Angermayer, Srinivas Rao, psilocybin, DMT, ketamine, MDMA, treatment-resistant depression, social anxiety disorder, schizophrenia cognitive impairment, digital therapeutics, NASDAQ:ATAI, COMPASS Pathways, Beckley Psytech, VLS-01, EMP-01, BPL-003, decentralized platform, biotech builder, mental wellness, neurotherapeutics, psychedelic research, innovative therapies, psychiatric disorders