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atai Life Sciences launches InnarisBio, in partnership with the University of Queensland, with the aim to develop a more effective nose-to-brain delivery method for atai’s platform of mental health therapeutic programs
BERLIN and BRISBANE, Australia, July 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- atai Life Sciences (“atai” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: ATAI), a clinical-stage
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[{"type":"text","content":"BERLIN and BRISBANE, Australia, July 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- atai Life Sciences (“atai” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: ATAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company aiming to transform the treatment of mental health disorders, and UniQuest, Australia’s leading university technology transfer company commercializing the research of The University of Queensland (UQ), today announced the launch of InnarisBio Inc. (InnarisBio), to develop a novel sol-gel intranasal drug delivery technology to improve treatments for mental health disorders. InnarisBio aims to commercialize the sol-gel intranasal drug delivery platform technology developed in the laboratory of UQ researcher Dr. Harendra (Harry) Parekh at the School of Pharmacy in the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences. The platform technology, which also includes a patent filing, was licensed to InnarisBio by UniQuest. Under the terms of the license, InnarisBio will receive exclusive rights in their desired fields. The sol-gel technology is designed to deliver pharmaceutical compounds as a liquid at room temperature which becomes a gel at body temperature. The platform technology has been successfully utilized with both water soluble and insoluble compounds and extracts. Traditional drug delivery methods can be problematic in the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders due to the blood–brain barrier that restricts the CNS entry of therapeutic agents, thereby decreasing drug efficacy. A potential solution is direct nose-to-brain delivery. It has the potential to be a painless and non-invasive administration route and may offer additional advantages such as increased patient compliance, lower dose requirements than oral administration, rapid onset of action and minimized systemic exposure, which may reduce the risk of peripheral toxicity. “InnarisBio aims to be a revolutionary technology company for intranasal drug delivery in the treatment of CNS disorders. Dr Parekh and his team at The University of Queensland have worked diligently to develop a platform technology that may mitigate many of the drawbacks typically associated with traditional drug delivery in the CNS space,” said Florian Brand, CEO and co-founder of atai Life Sciences. “This novel technology has the potential to be superior to other intranasal drug delivery methods available by improving absolut...