Sydney, Australia (CU)_ Emyria Limited, a clinical-stage biotech, will team up with PsychoGenics, a preclinical drug development and Contract Research Organization (CRO) specializing in neuroscience. Emyria and its collaborator, the University of Western Australia, will test five new MDMA analogs from their own library with the help of SmartCube, PsychoGenic’s drug discovery platform. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has already granted permission to ship the first MDMA-analogs to the United States.
SmartCube derives and evaluates behavioral and physiological data from mice. By comparing the effects of new drug compounds to those in reference drug libraries, this data can help forecast the clinical effects of new therapeutic compounds. The automated testing platform provides an efficient method for the identification and development of the future generation of medicines for neurological illnesses and can greatly minimize the time and expense required to get investigational new drug (IND) approval.
Before researching drug discovery and business collaboration approaches, PsychoGenics and Emyria have agreed to join forces during the initial stage. PsychoGenics’ drug screening tools have been employed in shared-risk agreements with large pharmaceutical firms, such as Sunovion and Roche, leading to the identification of a number of new compounds that are now undergoing clinical trials or advanced preclinical research. A successful collaboration with Emyria might expedite the development of new therapies for severe neuropsychiatric illnesses using Emyria’s revolutionary MDMA-inspired drug candidate library, which is built in collaboration with the University of Western Australia.
According to Emer Leahy, CEO of PsychoGenics, “Emyria and PsychoGenics share a common vision of accelerating the development of novel drug candidates to treat major neuropsychiatric disorders”. He added “Emyria’s leadership team and academic partners put the company at the forefront of MDMA-inspired neuropsychiatric drug development, and we are eager to help advance its preclinical program using our AI-enabled discovery engine and explore further partnership models together.”
Michael Winlo, managing director of Emyria, expressed hopes over the collaboration. He said, “Given the increasing research and investment into novel neurological drugs and psychedelic-assisted therapies, we are excited to accelerate the identification of promising neuropsychiatric drugs and next-generation psychedelic-assisted therapies for further evaluation. We are also looking forward to exploring partnership models together in order to unlock value from our growing portfolio of MDMA-like drug candidates being developed with partner, UWA.”
