The start-up, backed by Peter Thiel, filed for an initial public offering on Tuesday. Here’s what potential investors need to know.
ATAI Life Sciences, which makes psychedelic drugs to treat mental health disorders, announced that it is hoping to raise $100 million in an IPO. The filing showed that the start-up has already raised an aggregate of $362.3 million from private investors.
The biopharmaceutical company helps scientists raise money, works with regulators, and plans clinical trials in exchange for a majority stake in the drug.
Thiel — co-founder of PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) and Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR) — invested $12 million in ATAI and backs the company’s mission, stating:
“ATAI’s great virtue is to take mental illness as seriously as we should have been taking all illness all along. The company’s most valuable asset is its sense of urgency.”
When can I buy ATAI Like Sciences stock?
ATAI Like Sciences has not given an exact date for its IPO just yet. When it makes its market debut, the company hopes to sell its stock on the tech-heavy NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol ATAI.
Should I buy ATAI Like Sciences stock?
The global mental health treatment market is a highly profitable sector to invest in as it was estimated to be valued at $48.4 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.6% between 2020-2027, totaling $75.71 billion. ATAI is a drug development platform that was built to buy, incubate, and develop drugs that can be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and many other mental health illnesses. The psychedelics company also has strong ties in the industry and is currently partnered with 14 different healthcare companies all of which focus on drug development.
However, there’s a certain level of risk involved with investing in this IPO as to date, none of ATAI’s drugs have been formally approved by regulators. On top of that, the drug sector is a highly complicated, competitive field to dominate in. This was evidenced by the failure of the healthcare joint-venture, Haven, which was backed by industry titans JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM), Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).
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