$6M bankrolls Enveric pipeline partnering, depression program

On the heels of its announced partnership with MindBio (CNSX: MBIO) this week, Enveric Biosciences (NASDAQ: ENVB) said that it is trying to nail down potential licensing contracts for more of its pipeline candidates, as the biotech company also advances a lead “non-hallucinogenic” asset, it said in an earnings release Wednesday.

In the first quarter ending March 31, the clinical-stage biotech company reported a net loss of $2.46 million for the first quarter of 2024. Enveric had $6.36 million in cash remaining at the end of March after raising $4.5 million in the quarter from warrant and equity issuances, the company said.

“We continue to receive significant interest from strategic partners in the pharmaceutical industry for new drug candidates that target depression and anxiety disorders,” CEO Joseph Tucker said in a statement. “We believe there is a need for new therapeutics that could potentially provide the anxiolytic and antidepressant properties clinically reported in the literature for certain psychedelic compounds without, at the same time, inducing the hallmark hallucinatory effects that defines such agents.”

Enveric is developing EB-003, a neuroplastogenic small molecule designed not to cause hallucinations, as a potential treatment for depression and anxiety. The company said it continues advancing EB-003 toward an investigational new drug application filing and planned Phase 1 clinical trial.

Enveric executed seven non-binding term sheets to potentially out-license other drug candidates from its proprietary pipeline to four strategic partners. If definitive agreements are reached based on these term sheets, Tucker said the deals could represent up to $410 million in aggregate milestone payments for Enveric, plus future royalties.

The partnering candidates were discovered using Enveric’s Psybrary and PsyAI artificial intelligence platforms, which have so far yielded over 1,000 proprietary molecules across seven drug classes, according to Tucker, “around which the company has built a substantial intellectual property estate.” The compounds originate from psychedelic and cannabinoid backbones and span therapeutic areas including cancer, joint disease and neuropsychiatric conditions.

Tucker called the quarter “highly productive.”