AbbVie Officially Enters Psychedelics as Gilgamesh Deal Closes, Patent Dispute Opens

AbbVie has completed its acquisition of Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals’ lead candidate, bretisilocin^[1], the large pharmaceutical company announced last Friday. The associated press release described the drug as “a next-generation psychedelic compound.”

See our earlier reporting for more: AbbVie to Acquire Gilgamesh’s Bretisilocin for Up to $1.2B

The move sees AbbVie become the largest pharmaceutical company to substantially dabble in psychedelic drug development.

While the deal has been hailed as a cause for celebration among many psychedelic investors and drug developers, there may also be a cause célèbre waiting in the wings. That’s what Enveric Biosciences is hoping, at least.

As we explain in our latest Psychedelic Patent Update, the ailing publicly traded psychedelic drug developer—which has a market cap of <$3M and has seen its stock drop nearly 90% this year alone—has retained a prestigious law firm to defend itself against a post-grant review initiated by Gilgamesh against one of its patents. In that patent, Enveric claims bretisilocin, aka 5-fluoro-MET.

One must assume that AbbVie, which has a market cap 160,000 times larger than Enveric and is among the most established pharmaceutical companies in the world, did its diligence on the intellectual property front before closing the transaction. Still, should Enveric manage to maintain its bretisilocin claims, or some portion thereof, it might have some leverage to squeeze some cash out of Goliath.

We will be following this one closely...