atai Life Sciences launches Invyxis to accelerate mental health discovery

Germany-headquartered biotech atai Life Sciences (Nasdaq: ATAI) saw its shares rise 3.9% to $5.77 this morning, after announcing the launch of Invyxis, a new, wholly-owned platform company committed to developing new chemical entities (NCEs) and to further pioneering next-generation mental health treatments.

Invyxis will bring proven medicinal chemistry tools and comprehensive biological screening approaches to atai’s growing enterprise of drug discovery and design. It adds to a string of spinouts last year by atai, which includes PsyProtix, Revixia Life Sciences and Revixia Life Sciences. atai Life Sciences’ business model is to grow into a major global biopharmaceutical player by following a company buy-and-build approach.

The launch of Invyxis is a further step-up in atai’s growth and commitment to innovation in the treatment of mental health disorders. The new atai platform company has entered into a strategic collaboration with Dalriada Drug Discovery, specialists in the discovery of small molecule therapeutics. Invyxis will harness a broad array of methods including structure-based design, synthetic chemistry, high-throughput screening, and in vivo characterization.