Mentioned:
There’s a new drug in clinical trials for treating social anxiety disorder. And it’s made from a special type of MDMA.
What’s happening:
- atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ: ATAI) has officially begun dosing patients in a Phase II clinical trial for EMP-01 for social anxiety disorder
Why it matters:
- EMP-01 is an oral drug produced from R-MDMA which unlike traditional MDMA only affects serotonin in the brain and does not have nearly as much affect on either dopamine or norepinephrine
Going deeper:
- There are only a few drugs in the United States that have been approved for treating social anxiety disorder and many patients do not respond well to them and develop significant side effects that are intolerable
- atai Life Sciences’ early studies around EMP-01 validated that EMP-01 produced unique effects that were highly similar to classic psychedelic compounds and did not contain the stimulating effect often associated with traditional forms of MDMA
- Entrepreneur and investor Christian Angermayer recently led atai Life Sciences’ equity financing round which injected tens of millions of dollars into the company to advance their pipeline of psychedelic derived drugs
The intrigue:
- atai Life Sciences just recently made waves when they announced they had purchased $5M USD of Bitcoin to hold directly as an asset
