AtaiBeckley Agrees to Lilly Takeover, Replacing Standalone Outlook
Eli Lilly will pay $6.75 a share in cash at closing.
AtaiBeckley (ATAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, agreed to be acquired by Eli Lilly in a transaction valuing its equity at about $2.8 billion.
The deal shifted AtaiBeckley’s trajectory from a standalone drug-development company to an acquisition built around the progress of BPL-003 and VLS-01. Contingent payments tied to those programs could add as much as $2.50 a share, or about $1.0 billion.
AtaiBeckley stopped providing quarterly financial metrics and standalone cash-runway guidance with the acquisition announcement. Its prior earnings update reported $209.9 million in cash and short-term securities, down $10.8 million from year-end, and projected that funding would last into 2029.
BPL-003 had advanced into Phase 3 activities by July 16. Earlier, the company had expected the Phase 3 program to begin in the second quarter of 2026.
The contingent-value terms created three program-specific milestones. Shareholders could receive $1.00 a share if a VLS-01 Phase 3 trial starts within four years of closing, 50 cents if BPL-003 wins U.S. approval and Drug Enforcement Administration rescheduling within five years, and another $1.00 if VLS-01 clears those steps within seven years.
The acquisition announcement omitted the clinical-readout schedule AtaiBeckley had provided in its first-quarter update. That earlier outlook called for VLS-01 Phase 2 topline results and initial BPL-003 Phase 2a Part 4 data in the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by BPL-003 Phase 3 topline readouts in early 2029, leaving the deal milestones as the company’s principal forward markers.