With big pharma circling psychedelics, the next breakthrough may not come from tripping at all

When AbbVie moved to acquire Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at more than $1 billion, it sent shockwaves through the biotech community. For years, psychedelic-inspired drug development has been viewed as a fringe pursuit, scientifically intriguing, but clinically and commercially fraught. AbbVie’s decision to pay up for access to Gilgamesh’s pipeline marked a clear shift: big pharma is officially buying into the promise of neuroplastogens, molecules that repair and rewire brain circuits disrupted in psychiatric disease.

But as much as the AbbVie and Gilgamesh deal validated the field, it also raised a deeper question: which companies are building drugs that can realistically scale into everyday psychiatric practice?

Developers like COMPASS Pathways and MAPS PBC have shown impressive clinical results using psilocybin and MDMA. Yet the model, 6–8 hour in-clinic dosing sessions with two trained therapists present, creates a steep cost curve. Reimbursement remains uncertain, workforce shortages loom, and FDA reviewers have raised concerns about psychotherapy dependencies and functional unblinding.

That’s where the next generation of companies is finding its opportunity.

Enveric Biosciences (NASDAQ: ENVB) is one of the small-cap biotechs leaning into this shift. Its lead candidate, EB-003, is designed as a non-hallucinogenic derivative of DMT with a dual 5-HT₂A/5-HT₁B mechanism of action. The company defines this new pharmacological class as a neurostabilogen, a compound that delivers the neuroplasticity benefits associated with psychedelics without sending patients on a hallucinatory trip.

That distinction matters. If successful, EB-003 could:

Be taken orally in an outpatient setting.

Eliminate the need for costly day-long dosing sessions.

Avoid the regulatory and reimbursement obstacles tied to hallucinogenic protocols.

In today’s announcement, Enveric reported that the FDA had responded to its Pre-IND meeting request by encouraging the company to proceed directly to IND submission. For Enveric, that effectively streamlines its path into human trials. The company now expects to submit its IND for EB-003 in early 2026.

CEO Dr. Joseph Tucker framed the milestone as a clear inflection point: “The IND submission for EB-003 is an inflection point for Enveric, and we believe we are well positioned to execute efficiently on our clinical strategy and continue building value across our pipeline.”

AbbVie / Gilgamesh: Billion-dollar acquisition.

COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS): Psilocybin leader; compelling efficacy but costly delivery.

MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD): LSD derivatives; still hallucinogenic, faces same scalability limits.

MAPS PBC: MDMA-assisted therapy; potential FDA approval pending, but psychotherapy requirement remains.

Enveric (NASDAQ: ENVB): Small-cap innovator; building a differentiated class of non-hallucinogenic, outpatient-ready molecules.

The AbbVie and Gilgamesh deal proves that big pharma is circling the psychedelic space. But the long-term winners may not be the companies perfecting hallucinatory trips. Instead, they may be the ones designing scalable, clinically practical molecules that fit within existing healthcare systems.

Enveric’s bet is clear: the future of psychedelics may look less like tripping and more like everyday medicine.