Psychedelics For Mental Health Disorders With atai's Srinivas Rao, M.D., Ph.D.

Business Of Biotech

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On this week's episode, Dr. Srinivas Rao, co-founder and CEO at atai Life Sciences, explains how his engineering background led him to the development of psychedelic compounds for treating depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Internal drug development efforts at atai are focused on short-duration psychedelics that can work within existing healthcare infrastructure, with the potential to transform the treatment of mental health disorders. Rao also talks about atai's hub and spoke model for investing in other psychedelic companies, what MAPS/Lykos Therapeutics got wrong in the run-up to FDA's review of Lykos's MDMA candidate for PTSD, and whether psychedelic therapies need the "trip" to catalyze network disruption and neuroplasticity in the brain.

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Chapters

1. Introduction to atai Life Sciences (00:00:00)

2. Dr. Rao's Engineering Background (00:05:56)

3. Formation and Evolution of atai (00:12:10)

4. Challenges in Psychedelic Drug Development (00:21:38)

5. The Hub-and-Spoke Business Model (00:30:07)

6. Clinical Priorities and Future Milestones (00:37:35)

7. The Trip vs. Non-Trip Debate (00:43:46)

8. Global Impact of Psychedelic Therapy (00:52:22)