As many of you know, I’ve spent the better part of the last five years chairing the board of Transcend Therapeutics, a biotech company that we founded here at AlleyCorp in 2021. We’re incredibly excited to share that Transcend has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical for $700 million, with consideration for an additional $525 million contingent on future sales milestones.
Biotech isn’t a major focus area for us at AlleyCorp, but as one of the leading donors to Yale’s Program for Psychedelic Science, for years I’d been struck by the lack of innovation in treating PTSD patients. It’s a condition that affects 13 million people in the United States – veterans, first responders, and survivors of trauma and sexual assault.
Partnering with Blake Mandell – an AlleyCorp investor at the time who had been deep in the science – we set out to build Transcend from scratch.
After identifying a promising compound, TSND-201 (methylone), we designed and launched our first clinical trials, following the rigorous path toward eventual FDA approval. In March 2025, we saw our most significant results to-date – marking the first time a compound had demonstrated rapid efficacy for patients suffering from PTSD.
During the summer of 2025, Transcend received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the FDA — one of the most meaningful regulatory milestones a clinical-stage biotech can achieve. Even more noteworthy, considering the FDA had only approved two medications for PTSD in the last 20 years.
Moments like these are exactly why we built the incubation model at AlleyCorp. The idea that if you find the right science, back the right person, and give them the resources to go out and build, you can create something that changes the lives of millions of people. For all the companies we invest in at AlleyCorp, there’s something very unique about that full arc. Something that started as an idea in a meeting, turning into an entire team dedicated to that mission, to now scaling a treatment that will go on to revolutionize mental health.
It’s exactly why we do what we do.
I’m incredibly proud of what Blake, the Transcend team, and everyone at AlleyCorp has built — and I’m even more excited about what this acquisition can do for the millions of people living with PTSD. Otsuka brings the infrastructure, regulatory experience, and commercial reach that can take TSND-201 through the final phases of FDA trials and to patients across the world, and if this acquisition does what we believe it can, it’s a remarkable moment for mental health treatment at-large.
– Kevin