Compass Pathways has named biotech exec Daphne Karydas to its board.
Karydas is the president and chief financial officer of Flare Therapeutics Inc., which is developing drug discovery programs targeting transcription factors for cancer and other diseases.
Signs point to a potential FDA approval of psilocybin and MDMA under strict controls in the coming years, but the psychedelic therapy market has seen significant volatility in recent years. Since the company went public in September 2020, Compass has seen its valuation drop by more than two-thirds. Its stock, however, has shown some recent resilience rebounding by 17.49% year-to-date.
The volatility isn’t unique to Compass. Fellow psychedelic stock company ATAI Life Sciences NV (NASDAQ:ATAI) has seen its valuation plummet by 93% since its debut in mid-2021.
The market fluctuations mirror the challenges of navigating the psychedelic therapy space, increasing the need for seasoned leadership.
In addition to her role at Flare, Karydas has more than two decades of financial and operational experience from the biopharma sector. Her tenure includes key roles at Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Allergan plc, and various analyst roles at institutions such as JPMorgan Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and others.
Compass now has a phase 3 COMP360 psilocybin program underway in treatment-resistant depression and a phase 2 program for both anorexia nervosa and post-traumatic stress disorder.
One factor that could bode well for the overall psychedelic industry is the recent publication of a phase 3 trial on MDMA-assisted therapy for moderate to severe PTSD in Nature Medicine. The data from the multi-site, randomized, double-blind phase 3 trial were positive. Participants were tested against a placebo combined with identical therapy for individuals with moderate to severe PTSD. The primary measure used was the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) total severity score. Results showed that the MDMA-AT group experienced a more significant reduction in PTSD symptoms and functional impairment compared to the placebo group. Specifically, the average change in CAPS-5 score for MDMA-AT was significantly higher than that of the placebo. However, seven participants reported severe treatment-emergent adverse events, but no deaths or serious events were observed.
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