Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 149 - Srinivas Rao - CEO & Co-Founder

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Episode 149 - Srinivas Rao - CEO & Co-Founder · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  So welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub and
• 0:09
  Avetics podcast. Today I'm joined by Srini
• 0:12
  Vasrao, CEO of Atai Beckley. Srini was the Co founder of ATAI
• 0:17
  and originally served as CSO before stepping into the CEO
• 0:20
  role. With a background spanning
• 0:22
  medicine, neurobiology and engineering, he brings a unique
• 0:25
  perspective to building companies focused on mental
• 0:27
  health. Atai Beckley is developing
• 0:29
  rapid, rapid acting therapies for mental health, and in this
• 0:34
  conversation, we talk about how Atai was founded, the evolution
• 0:38
  of the psychedelic space, Srini's transition into the CEO
• 0:41
  role, and what's next for the company.
• 0:43
  It's a pleasure to have you, Srini, How are you?
• 0:46
  I am doing well Max, Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:49
  It's an absolute pleasure. Honestly, I the listeners, I've
• 0:53
  I've definitely been trying for a while.
• 0:55
  So it's good that it's finally come.
• 0:58
  Yeah, let's let's start with with you.
• 1:01
  You've been at I from the very beginning.
• 1:05
  And how did the the company come to be and what was the original
• 1:09
  vision? Yeah, it's a really interesting
• 1:11
  question. So the original genesis of the
• 1:15
  company was actually almost like a vehicle for Christian to put
• 1:20
  money into Compass, believe it or not.
• 1:22
  So this is back in the day when, you know, Compass was obviously
• 1:25
  developed, is developing psilocybin for the treatment of
• 1:28
  treatment resistant depression. It was controversial like in
• 1:33
  2017, 2018. It's it was, it's hard to
• 1:36
  envision at this point, but they were really struggling to raise
• 1:39
  money. Christian and some of his
• 1:41
  friends kind of came together to help support the company and a
• 1:45
  tie in its original, you know, version was actually an
• 1:49
  instrument to do that, a vehicle to do that.
• 1:53
  At some point, it kind of turned into more of a a family office
• 1:55
  for Christian. So he was, you know, the the
• 1:58
  second investment was a company called Perception.
• 2:01
  And as it turned out the Co founder Perception was my very
• 2:05
  first boss in the industry in biotech.
• 2:07
  So that's how I got to meet the folks.
• 2:10
  And then we had a discussion about turning a tie itself into
• 2:15
  a biotech company into an actual operating company versus a
• 2:19
  family office. And that of course is that was
• 2:22
  how I came on board and that's obviously been my role since to
• 2:25
  actually convert that to transition it into an operating
• 2:29
  company initially. Yeah, it's interesting, like the
• 2:32
  way it's, it's kind of come about that how did it work
• 2:35
  logistically then did you sort of in license some assets and or
• 2:40
  did you discover what like how did it work?
• 2:43
  It's a great question. We had a much more complex
• 2:46
  business model at the at the inception of the company.
• 2:49
  So for a range of reasons at that time, we had a model where
• 2:52
  we would invest money into other companies for the most part, at
• 2:56
  least initially, just like Perception or Compass with that
• 2:59
  matter. And we take a significant stake
• 3:02
  in those companies, sometimes controlling stakes, sometimes
• 3:04
  not. You know, it could be lower than
• 3:07
  50% and you know, we would provide resources as necessary.
• 3:13
  In some cases there was really no team at the at the at the
• 3:16
  other company and in other cases there were or just made, you
• 3:19
  know, just the founder or something.
• 3:20
  And in other cases there was more of a team.
• 3:22
  So we would sort of mix and match and put resources in as
• 3:26
  necessary. So that's kind of how it
• 3:28
  initially started. But we also incubated assets and
• 3:32
  we had a number of such compounds or such companies.
• 3:35
  They were all subsidiaries. Interestingly enough, two of
• 3:39
  them were Viridia Life Sciences and 1 was Empath and the other
• 3:43
  one was Empath Bio. And it's funny because our three
• 3:47
  leads now are BPL, which is Beckley Scitec.
• 3:51
  That's where O3 came from. VLSO one is radio life sciences
• 3:55
  O1 and EM PO1 is Empath five O 1.
• 3:58
  So you know their names actually betray their their past and
• 4:03
  their history and how they got there.
• 4:04
  But the latter 2 were in fact incubated directly within time.
• 4:09
  Amazing. And you, you said it earlier as
• 4:11
  well. You know, at that time, this was
• 4:14
  a very new and and fairly controversial area.
• 4:19
  How? How did you think about building
• 4:21
  a business and finding investors in a market that didn't really
• 4:24
  exist yet? Yes, I mean a couple of things
• 4:26
  changed between you know the 2017 eighteen kind of time frame
• 4:31
  and 19 when I actually joined. I just realized today is April
• 4:35
  1st. So I think in terms of my
• 4:37
  initial, my original actual start date was I believe April's
• 4:42
  1st, 2019. So it has been a while.
• 4:45
  I mean, I started working very closely with the team at the
• 4:48
  beginning of 2019, but I think the official start date was
• 4:51
  seven years ago. So, yeah, so you know, the the
• 4:57
  field changed pretty quickly even in 2019, and that was a
• 5:02
  result of the approval of Spirbottom.
• 5:06
  So in many ways, you know, as bravado was his indeed the kind
• 5:10
  of precursor to the psychedelic compounds, right?
• 5:13
  I mean, there's a lot of things that do overlap.
• 5:15
  It's an interventional compound, etcetera.
• 5:18
  So that's where things started. It became a lot more legitimized
• 5:23
  at that point because there was a big company that was doing
• 5:25
  something similar. If not, it wasn't identical.
• 5:28
  Obviously there's a bit still differences, but that helped
• 5:31
  tremendously. Obviously, you know, we had
• 5:35
  COVID shortly thereafter. Interestingly, we built this
• 5:38
  company. Actually, I PO D it during
• 5:39
  COVID. That's a whole discussion unto
• 5:41
  itself. But you know, we the, you know,
• 5:46
  the, that was, you know, again, that had its, that had its own
• 5:51
  challenges, but during that period of time, there's a lot of
• 5:53
  money thrown around and suddenly the psychedelics were in a very
• 5:57
  different realm. It's like at the very year we're
• 6:00
  really kind of in the peak of the hype cycle at that time.
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  And there were probably I think at one point there were like 100
• 6:06
  companies that were purporting to be generate developing
• 6:09
  psychedelic M sets. And then obviously, you know, as
• 6:13
  always this like the hype cycle kind of has came down.
• 6:16
  I think it's Nadir was really what two years ago or I think
• 6:21
  it's 24 with the whole Lycos experience, A lot of folks
• 6:27
  really thought that Lycos was going to get approved.
• 6:30
  I mean, I always had concerns about that.
• 6:32
  It wasn't obvious to me that it would when it got rejected.
• 6:36
  There was a podcast on the entire sector, a pretty
• 6:39
  significant one. And this, you know, now the
• 6:42
  sector is really, you know, over the past year, obviously things
• 6:45
  have moved right and changed and improve, but that was kind of
• 6:49
  the Navy are now we're in a very different place I would say
• 6:51
  overall. Yeah, it's interesting that
• 6:54
  journey, isn't it? Those kind of peaks and troughs
• 6:56
  and you've really, when you're in a peak, you've really got to
• 6:59
  try and you know, get the cash in while it's while it's there,
• 7:02
  right? Like it's why do you think those
• 7:05
  peaks were? Do you think it was down to, I
• 7:07
  suppose, people's perception of mental health as a whole about
• 7:11
  that? Nor was it something else?
• 7:13
  Yeah, it's a good question. Again, as mentioned, obviously
• 7:18
  Spravato helped, but there are also some newer publications
• 7:21
  that also helped with psychedelics.
• 7:24
  But absolutely, I mean, mental health became much more front
• 7:28
  and center during the COVID epidemic, right?
• 7:31
  So, you know, one of the reasons that I was I've been intrigued
• 7:34
  with social anxiety disorder is that, you know, that again, came
• 7:39
  to the fore in in COVID. And you know, I had kids in high
• 7:43
  school at that time and they were all pretty heavily
• 7:47
  impacted. I mean, you taught, you took
• 7:48
  basically a generation of kids that missed a really important
• 7:53
  period of socialization and social development and you know
• 7:58
  that's going to carry on for a period of time.
• 8:00
  So the discussion around mental health broadly, but depression,
• 8:05
  suicidality, social anxiety, all that stuff really kind of became
• 8:10
  much more prevalent, much more common in the way press.
• 8:14
  Yeah, sure. It's it.
• 8:16
  Yeah, it is interesting those kind of points of hype and and
• 8:19
  all of that. I just want to bring it back to
• 8:22
  you a little bit as well because your journey has been
• 8:25
  interesting at time in its own right.
• 8:27
  You know you joined as CSO, so then Co CEO and then now as a
• 8:32
  recent CEO. What what's the transition been
• 8:35
  like for you? Yeah.
• 8:36
  I think it's also useful to think about the reasons for the
• 8:39
  transition. I mean part of it was, you know,
• 8:40
  just this shift in in business model, right.
• 8:43
  So the company was really heavily focused on business
• 8:47
  development initially, right, And bringing in these assets and
• 8:50
  kind of negotiating that. Obviously their operating
• 8:53
  company piece was critical, right, as you're as we are
• 8:56
  building this. But it did kind of bifurcate
• 8:59
  into two different things. So Florian business backgrounds
• 9:03
  really how yeah, that was critical to building that
• 9:05
  initial stage of the company. Our focus over the last, you
• 9:11
  know, since certainly during my 10 year has really been a
• 9:14
  transition to a more traditional biotech and, you know, really
• 9:19
  focusing on a pipeline that is 100% owned etcetera.
• 9:23
  So it's, you know, it, it, it wasn't really needed for an
• 9:28
  advancing pipeline. It made it very, you know,
• 9:30
  having partially owned assets just made things difficult in
• 9:33
  terms of fundraising and everything else.
• 9:35
  It was just a lot of explaining that need to happen.
• 9:37
  So this, this path, this journey has been really important for
• 9:41
  the company as it, as the assets go into phase three and get
• 9:46
  closer to commercialization. So that's, that was the, you
• 9:49
  know, the impetus for this. And you know, I mean, I have
• 9:54
  been fortunate. I've done a lot of different
• 9:57
  things. So I have been mainly at small
• 10:00
  companies my entire career. The largest company I think was
• 10:04
  about 500 people that was commercial.
• 10:06
  But for the most part, it's all been startups, some that I
• 10:10
  started up, others where I have been a Co founder.
• 10:13
  I like that small company environment.
• 10:15
  I like building things. One of the things that the one
• 10:20
  of the up, you know, one of the, the, the, the corollaries of
• 10:22
  this is I've done a lot of different things, right?
• 10:25
  So I've had intellectual property reporting to me.
• 10:29
  I've set up commercial teams in the past.
• 10:32
  I've been responsible for IP, you know, preclinical all the
• 10:37
  way to phase, phase three and phase four trials.
• 10:39
  So, you know, it's very much one of those situations where Jack
• 10:43
  of all trades, master of none, you know, so, but that's really
• 10:47
  helpful and it's it's, you know, I've had a fundraise in the past
• 10:50
  as well. So it, it was a fairly
• 10:53
  comfortable transition for me. Obviously been here since the
• 10:56
  beginning and pretty heavily involved on fundraising and
• 10:59
  everything else. But you know, again, it was
• 11:01
  really all around this transition in business model
• 11:03
  that that made this shift necessary.
• 11:08
  So from I mean you can see how it was planned, right, Like to
• 11:11
  put you into that Co CEO role and then into CEO, how
• 11:16
  beneficial was that time as Co CEO to you as well?
• 11:20
  I mean, I think it was helpful just to level set, I mean
• 11:23
  partially with the team and you know kind of transition some of
• 11:26
  the responsibilities as flooring was heading out.
• 11:30
  So, you know, it's, it's, it's just nice to have these things
• 11:33
  in a controlled fashion versus an uncontrolled or abrupt
• 11:36
  fashion. It, it allows the team to, to
• 11:38
  get comfortable. It allows, you know, me in this
• 11:41
  case to, to also fully, you know, dive into all the other
• 11:45
  elements that I hadn't really had a lot of visibility on
• 11:48
  because I was so focused on really the R&D side of things
• 11:52
  for much of that time. And what it's, it's been a
• 11:55
  little while now. How?
• 11:56
  What's it been 7-8 weeks? Oh no, I it was the beginning of
• 12:00
  last year. Oh, OK.
• 12:02
  Oh yeah, we've been been a while now.
• 12:03
  How's it been? Yeah, it's been great.
• 12:05
  I mean, you know, last year was phenomenal, right?
• 12:07
  It was a truly transformational year for the company.
• 12:10
  So you know we were able to raise a substantial amount of
• 12:15
  money about $300 million gross over four races in total.
• 12:21
  We had a very successful outcome with the BP LO3 phase two trial.
• 12:27
  We announced in advance of that actually that we are going to
• 12:30
  come together Itai and Beckley, we're going to come together
• 12:34
  pending those results. Again, those results were great.
• 12:36
  So we we, you know, did that and announced that in the latter in
• 12:40
  the the fall of last year. Also, you know, there's a bunch
• 12:45
  of other stuff. I mean, we read domicile the
• 12:47
  company into the United States, which simplified a lot of things
• 12:51
  in terms of fundraising as well. And you know, kind of was
• 12:54
  consistent with the the nature of the company at that point.
• 12:58
  So you know, there's a lot that happened last year.
• 13:02
  It completely a different company than you know, it was
• 13:05
  funny going to JP Morgan, which is, you know, the big biotech
• 13:08
  conference that happens every year in January in San
• 13:11
  Francisco. It's just such a different
• 13:13
  meeting this year compared to last year because the company
• 13:17
  was in a totally different place.
• 13:19
  So it was exciting It's been a great it's super exciting.
• 13:22
  Yeah. Let's.
• 13:23
  Let's talk about the merger as well.
• 13:25
  You know, you what, what's that transition look like and you
• 13:28
  know, both strategically and operationally.
• 13:31
  Yeah. I mean, obviously mergers are
• 13:34
  always, you know, it can be fraught.
• 13:36
  We have a great team internally that, you know, that had a lot
• 13:41
  of experience on both sides with with mergers and I think that's
• 13:45
  certainly helped tremendously. Like, you know, we brought
• 13:48
  across we, you know, obviously one of the reasons we're doing
• 13:51
  this, yeah, was asset of course. But as a people, right, the
• 13:53
  people that understand BP LO3 that have put together and run a
• 13:58
  successful phase 2B trial, we didn't want any of that to go
• 14:01
  anywhere with that expertise and we are fortunate that it didn't.
• 14:06
  So it's been very successful. If you think about it, you know,
• 14:09
  not one of the measures is you know, folks that leave, right.
• 14:12
  And we have had just a very few people that have actually
• 14:17
  departed, I mean less than a handful of spending like one or
• 14:21
  two people I think at this point that have actually leave that
• 14:24
  have a lot that, you know, that was folks that we didn't want
• 14:28
  necessarily to go. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's
• 14:31
  been very successful, successful from that perspective.
• 14:34
  We worked closely together pre the acquisition 'cause, you
• 14:40
  know, we were a major shareholder anyway, but we
• 14:43
  worked very closely on the phase three protocol, the end of phase
• 14:46
  two meeting. Super smooth.
• 14:49
  Really. You know, that was just such a
• 14:51
  great meeting on the, you know, the FDA was incredibly
• 14:55
  supportive of our program, Lots of good discussion about how we
• 15:00
  can move it forward, great suggestions from their side,
• 15:02
  very interactive. So that was a testament to the
• 15:06
  teams coming together, working together to actually put
• 15:10
  together a great meeting. That's awesome.
• 15:13
  That's awesome. You, you mentioned the pipeline
• 15:16
  earlier in the conversation, but let's just talk about it a bit
• 15:20
  more like what, what are you building and why do you believe
• 15:23
  these therapies can be so transformative for patients?
• 15:27
  Yeah. Well, let's start with that
• 15:28
  latter point first. So, you know, in terms of mental
• 15:32
  health, the status quo for the longest time was you take a drug
• 15:36
  at home on a daily basis, it's going to give you side effects
• 15:40
  right out the gate. But over time, typically 4
• 15:44
  weeks, maybe a little bit longer, you will see a degree of
• 15:47
  efficacy or you won't, and we don't know.
• 15:49
  We're just going to have to try it, right.
• 15:51
  So you're going to do that. And then if it doesn't work,
• 15:55
  well, we'll try something else. We might add another drug on,
• 15:58
  but oh, you also have to get an appointment to go see your doc
• 16:00
  and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, folks really had
• 16:03
  this challenge that they were waiting a long time.
• 16:06
  They're suffering for an extended period of time before
• 16:10
  they got a therapy that actually worked for them.
• 16:13
  And in many situations, the efficacy was relatively modest,
• 16:17
  right? The degree of efficacy was
• 16:18
  modest and the side effects are real.
• 16:21
  And as I mentioned, they start right out the gate.
• 16:23
  They can be, you know, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, sleep
• 16:27
  abnormalities, right, sleep disturbances.
• 16:29
  So none of this is good. Spravada was the first real, you
• 16:34
  know, you know, change, you know, big change here.
• 16:39
  And what it brought to the mix was rapid onset of efficacy,
• 16:44
  right? So as Spravada, you take the
• 16:46
  drug, I'll be at a doctor's office.
• 16:49
  That's another change. But then you will feel better
• 16:51
  that day and certainly by the next day.
• 16:54
  But what does it lack? It lacks durability, right?
• 16:58
  See, most of these folks, like 7, upwards of 70% are getting
• 17:02
  this drug in maintenance every week.
• 17:05
  OK, so just think about that. The way this works is you have
• 17:08
  to go to the doctor's office. You're not driving.
• 17:11
  You have to get taken to the doctor's office.
• 17:13
  You check in, you get dosed the label in the case.
• 17:16
  You have to stay in the doctor's office for a minimum of two
• 17:19
  hours, you get evaluated and then if you're medically
• 17:22
  cleared, you can go home. And again, you're not driving
• 17:24
  home either. You know, if, if you're close to
• 17:29
  the doctor's office, it's probably what, 3-4 hours a
• 17:32
  minimum, I mean absolute minimum.
• 17:34
  Realistically, if you're a little bit further away, the
• 17:36
  doctor's office is busy, blah, blah, blah, it's much of the day
• 17:40
  for you. So the patients are in this
• 17:43
  untenable situation, many of them where they either have can
• 17:48
  feel better or have a life, right?
• 17:50
  And having a life in this case, you know, being able to pick up
• 17:53
  their kids, drop kids off and being able to hold down a job.
• 17:56
  Many people are going on a disability.
• 17:59
  So that is the untenable situation.
• 18:01
  Really good efficacy, no doubt about it.
• 18:03
  But that's the problem. Psychedelics can address that,
• 18:07
  right? So they give you rapidity of
• 18:09
  onset, but they also give you durability, right?
• 18:12
  So the durability can last, you know, you know, many weeks, if
• 18:16
  not months, and in some cases even longer, like, you know,
• 18:19
  upwards of the year. So that's the big difference
• 18:21
  with psychedelics. Now there are, you know, 2
• 18:25
  psychedelics that are one's going to go into a have an NDA
• 18:28
  this year. That's Compasses comp 360, which
• 18:31
  is psilocybin. And then my Med or I'm sorry,
• 18:34
  definium is probably also going to have an NDA very soon because
• 18:37
  they have some phase three readouts this year.
• 18:39
  The challenge with those compounds is a simple one.
• 18:42
  It is a long, long day. So the patient comes in
• 18:46
  psilocybin, the experience is 4 to 6 hours.
• 18:49
  LSD is longer and you know, we had a investor day recently, we
• 18:54
  had some Kols on, you know, key opinion leaders on that call.
• 18:58
  And importantly, those folks had actually been involved with
• 19:01
  clinical, our clinical trial, but also the clinical trials of
• 19:04
  some of these other compounds. And what they said is that it
• 19:08
  was remarkable that you know, you when you take so, so when
• 19:11
  you take LC, it's a long day and the patients are exhausted at
• 19:14
  the end of it. It's an emotionally draining day
• 19:17
  with BP LO3, they come out somewhat energized, right?
• 19:22
  It's a shorter experience, much shorter psychedelic, like the
• 19:25
  intense psychedelic experience or you know, like it's, it's
• 19:28
  equivalent between all these drugs, but it's just a lot
• 19:31
  shorter with BPLO 3 and actually BLSO 1 and you know, the
• 19:37
  patients, did they, they come out of it.
• 19:40
  They're feeling pretty good still not driving home.
• 19:42
  But it's a short experience. The doctors like it because they
• 19:46
  can have more than one patient in a room per day.
• 19:48
  That's been a really critical point for them.
• 19:51
  It turns out that the folks that have to sit in the room and
• 19:54
  monitor the patient, if it's a long day, it's exhausting for
• 19:57
  them. It's really and we hadn't really
• 20:01
  fully appreciated that, right. And it's with a 2 hour thing,
• 20:04
  it's just much easier all around.
• 20:07
  So we believe we absolutely have the best assets in the in the
• 20:10
  space and most commercially. Viable and most commercially
• 20:14
  scalable assets by virtue of the fact that they're two hours in
• 20:17
  roughly 2 hours or less in duration.
• 20:19
  Psychedelic duration. Amazing.
• 20:22
  That's awesome. And then you know, when you look
• 20:24
  ahead at, you know, what key milestones there are or
• 20:27
  inflection points for the company, what, what, what's to
• 20:30
  come. Yeah.
• 20:31
  So with BP LO3I, I guess I forgot to mention exactly what
• 20:35
  these assets are. So BP LO3 is, is 5 methoxy DMT
• 20:40
  and it's in an intranasal format like Spravada.
• 20:44
  Spravada is also intranasal. So you know, again that we had
• 20:50
  that successful trial. We actually had the end of phase
• 20:52
  two meeting. That's an important meeting with
• 20:54
  the FTA. You discuss the results, you
• 20:56
  discuss your plan with the FTA and then they they agree or
• 20:59
  disagree. We had the very, very good
• 21:02
  alignment. So we, we actually made public
• 21:05
  where our plans are for the phase three program.
• 21:07
  We'll be initiating in that phase three program very soon.
• 21:10
  So it's actually, yeah, it's April.
• 21:11
  So this quarter we'll be kicking that off.
• 21:13
  So big really excited about that.
• 21:15
  We also have a smaller study of phase two way that's kind of
• 21:18
  been ongoing in parallel to all the other trials.
• 21:21
  We have some additional interesting readouts readout, I
• 21:24
  should say from that later this year.
• 21:26
  The LSO 1 is a oral thin film formulation of DMT.
• 21:32
  So DMT, so 5 methoxy DMT, you know, that can that's, you know,
• 21:37
  that comes from like toad venom and stuff.
• 21:40
  Ours is very different. You're not inhaling it.
• 21:42
  So it's a very different, you know, kind of profile in the
• 21:45
  blood. DMT is actually active moiety in
• 21:49
  ayahuasca, but ayahuasca is also a long procedure.
• 21:53
  It's like a long experience. This is an oral thin film.
• 21:56
  It goes in pretty quickly. It's like a Listerine strip.
• 21:58
  You stick it on the inside of your, in the cheek surface on
• 22:01
  the inside of your mouth. It goes in that way.
• 22:04
  We are in a phase 2B trial currently with that and that
• 22:07
  trial we'll be reading out in the second-half of this year.
• 22:10
  If things go well, if things go as anticipated, we, we would
• 22:14
  plan on moving that forward into phase three next year.
• 22:17
  EMPO 1 is our last asset. That is the, the, that's a
• 22:22
  single enantiomer of MDMA. And so enantiomer, I mean, so
• 22:27
  some drugs are referred to as Rasmates.
• 22:29
  They actually have two things in them, two different molecules.
• 22:32
  They're kind of like your hands. So they're mirror images.
• 22:35
  They don't superimpose. And because they're different,
• 22:38
  like because they're mirror images, they actually have
• 22:40
  different pharmacology and hit different receptors in the
• 22:43
  brain. And in the case of MDMA, the S
• 22:46
  and antimer is very much like a stimulant and the R and antimer
• 22:51
  is much more serotonergic. So we anticipated a lot of the
• 22:55
  beneficial stuff was in the in the R and antimer.
• 22:58
  We got rid of the S and we found that there's some very
• 23:02
  interesting properties when you do that.
• 23:05
  It's got a an interesting profile that's kind of like and
• 23:09
  then pathogen and toxigen like MDMA, but it's also got some
• 23:12
  psychedelic elements to it. So really cool profile.
• 23:15
  We put that into another a new indication.
• 23:17
  I mean, Owens, everybody is including ourselves is doing
• 23:20
  depression and GAD, which is kind of on a spectrum with
• 23:24
  depression. SAD is something completely
• 23:27
  different. Social anxiety disorder, you
• 23:30
  know, obviously these patients, you know, we talked a little bit
• 23:32
  about it. It's these are folks that are
• 23:34
  actually actively avoiding social interaction, social
• 23:38
  situations that's really deleterious for your mental
• 23:41
  health and your health more generally, right?
• 23:43
  So this is a big unmet medical need.
• 23:45
  So we no one had been doing psychedelic work in it.
• 23:48
  We want to take a look at it. So we announced some results
• 23:52
  earlier this year a few weeks ago I guess from a Phase 2A
• 23:57
  study, really good results. We are very happy with the
• 24:00
  results, supportive of continued development of that and social
• 24:03
  anxiety disorder, we have additional analysis are going to
• 24:07
  be coming up. We'll be announcing those not
• 24:09
  too distant future and announcing plans and how we're
• 24:11
  going to move that forward. So, you know, stay tuned, lots
• 24:14
  coming up. Definitely stay tuned, there's
• 24:16
  loads coming up. That's awesome.
• 24:18
  Yeah, that's so good to see. Thank you so much for talking us
• 24:22
  through all that. It's super exciting.
• 24:25
  This brings us now to to my final question, which is a
• 24:28
  question I ask every one of my guests.
• 24:32
  So if you could have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past
• 24:36
  or present, who would it be and why?
• 24:38
  Yeah, that is a tough one. I mean, there's, there's so many
• 24:41
  names that pop to mind. You know, some of them, I guess
• 24:45
  they're going to be kind of the usual ones in some sense, you
• 24:48
  know, the the likes of Einstein and others.
• 24:50
  But I think the one that the one that sort of resonates in some
• 24:54
  way is Leonardo da Vinci. And, you know, I think, I mean,
• 25:00
  he was a true Renaissance man, right?
• 25:02
  I mean, like an artist, scientists in the fashion that
• 25:06
  is appropriate for his time. I'm an inventor, right, across a
• 25:11
  lot of different disciplines. And you know, I've always, you
• 25:16
  know, I, I enjoy that. I like being able to go across
• 25:19
  different disciplines. That's the engineering, that's
• 25:21
  the computer science, that's the neuro psych and all that.
• 25:24
  I just enjoy that. I, I like to see that in other
• 25:27
  people. It's kind of, it's fun.
• 25:29
  It gives you a different perspective.
• 25:30
  But I guess he was he is the inspiration in some sense.
• 25:35
  Oh yeah, what an answer. I love that.
• 25:38
  Thank you so much for coming on, Srini.
• 25:40
  It's absolute pleasure. Max Yeah, no, I really enjoyed
• 25:43
  it. Thank you so much.
• 25:44
  Yeah, look everyone stay tuned for frat eyes next milestones
• 25:48
  and look, please subscribe and like the bio hub.
• 25:52
  Thanks again, Srini.