Consolidation in psychedelics as atai pairs with Beckley
UK psychedelic medicines developer Beckley Psytech has agreed to be acquired by German rival atai Life Sciences in a share-based deal that values it at around $390 million.
The agreement to create a combined company, known as atai Beckley, comes almost 18 months after atai made a $50 million investment in the UK company that gave it 36% ownership in the UK company, and alongside a $30 million placement of fresh equity.
Shareholders in the Nasdaq-listed German company, which is backed by billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, will own around 69% of atai Beckley. The deal is, however, contingent on a positive result in a mid-stage trial of Beckley's lead asset for treatment-resistant depression (TRD).
In a joint statement, atai and Beckley said the combined company – which will be led by atai chief executive Srinivas Rao – will become "a market-leading mental health company with a pipeline that includes potentially transformative, rapid-acting psychedelic assets differentiated by their convenient route of administration and short time-in-clinic."
Beckley's BPL-003, an intranasal formulation of a psychoactive compound (5-MeO-DMT benzoate or mebufotenin) found in plants and the Colorado River toad, is in a phase 2b trial involving patients with TRD that is due to read out in the middle of this year.
Recent data from a phase 2a study showed that administration of BPL-003 to patients in a controlled environment with psychological support was associated with improvements in depression symptoms with no serious adverse effects, with subjects able to be discharged within a couple of hours of dosing.
Bringing the two companies together will create a psychedelics player with a pipeline of multiple candidates that also includes atai's VLS-01 DMT (dimethyltryptamine) for TRD and EMP-01 R-MDMA for social anxiety disorder (SAD), which are both in early-stage clinical development.
ELE-101 (psilocin) for major depressive disorder (MDD) – acquired by Beckley when it merged with fellow UK psychedelics player Eleusis in 2022 – does not seem to feature in the plans as Beckley said it intends to spin out assets related to that programme before the merger completes.
"This combination brings together two highly complementary pipelines to create a market leader at the forefront of psychiatric care," according to Beckley chief executive Cosmo Feilding Mellen, who said atai Beckley "will be even better positioned to accelerate development, drive long-term value for shareholders, and – most importantly – deliver meaningful innovation for patients."
The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year, subject to atai shareholder approval, as Beckley's investors have already voted in favour of the transaction. If it goes through, Feilding Mellen will serve as chief strategy officer of the merged company.
