Overview

• AbbVie agreed to acquire bretisilocin (GM-2505) from Gilgamesh in a deal worth up to $1.2 billion, combining an upfront payment with development milestones.
• The prior option-to-license arrangement transfers to a new spinoff, Gilgamesh Pharma Inc., which will keep the workforce and programs such as blixeprodil, a cardio-safe ibogaine analog, and an M1/M4 agonist effort.
• In a Phase 2a study for moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder, a single 10 mg dose cut MADRS scores by 21.6 points at Day 14 versus 12.1 for a low-dose comparator (p=0.003), with no serious adverse events reported.
• AbbVie’s chief scientific officer Roopal Thakkar framed the deal as a commitment to novel psychiatric treatments and said the company plans to advance bretisilocin to late-stage testing.
• The move follows rising industry confidence in psychedelic therapies, with recent advances reported by Reunion Neuroscience and Compass Pathways and earlier Bloomberg reporting that lifted peer stock prices.