COMPASS Pathways PLC (NASDAQ:CMPS) is teaming up with a group of leading scientists to expand its Discovery Center. These scientists are affiliated to leading laboratories at Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and UC San Diego, School of Medicine. The team will include John D McCorvy Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, MCW and Adam Halberstadt Ph.D., Associate Professor, Psychiatry, UC San Diego and their teams, and Jason Wallach Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of the Sciences (Philadelphia). This team will form a group of scientists working together at Discovery Center.
Established in August 2020 through a sponsored research agreement between COMPASS and the University of the Sciences, the COMPASS Discovery Center intends to expand its research network across the US with John McCorvy in Wisconsin and Adam Halberstadt in San Diego. The Center is led by Jason Wallach’s laboratory at the University of the Sciences.
The project will involve developing new, optimized psychedelic compounds to address unmet medical needs under COMPASS’ exclusive license.
Adam Halberstadt, Ph.D., leads a team involved in studying how psychedelics interact with serotonin systems and how this can be harnessed for psychedelic therapy. Dr. Halberstadt is an expert on the behavioral neuropharmacology of psychedelics. His efficient, automated head-twitch response preclinical assay is currently being used to screen novel psychedelic compounds. He is the co-editor of the book Behavioural Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs.
John McCorvy Ph.D. is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling specialist and an expert in 5-HT receptor pharmacology. He has a lab at MCW where he studies multiple aspects of GPCR signaling caused by antidepressant, antipsychotic, and psychedelic drugs. Among his work is studying different drugs binds to the same receptor, a process called functional selectivity. At the Discovery Center, he will conduct a detailed pharmacological study and classification of new compounds.
In a statement, COMPASS Pathways Chief Business Officer and Co-founder Lars Wilde said the collaboration will bring together three of the world’s most eminent scientists in psychedelic research. The Discovery Center, he says, will mainly focus on preclinical research of novel psychedelic compounds to fill unmet medical gaps. The Center will aim to a broad portfolio of drugs that will help in the vision of a mental well-being world.
