IntelGenX is a drug delivery technology company based in Montreal. It was founded in 2003 by its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Horst Zerbe. The company specializes in developing and commercially producing dissolvable oral film strips that deliver treatment in a range of under-addressed therapeutic areas. Its current product pipeline addresses pain, migraine, schizophrenia, neurodegenerative disease, opioid dependence, and mental health disorders.
IntelGenX’s patents cover formulations pertaining to the company’s oral film technologies and a “mucoadhesive tablet.” The company graduated to the Toronto Stock Exchange in October 2020.
Strategic partnerships with Cybin, ATAI, Tilray, and Heritage brought IntelGenX into the medical psychedelic and cannabis spaces. Through an agreement finalized in July 2020, IntelGenX worked with Cybin to create strips for the biopharmaceutical company’s psilocybin-based drug, Psilotonin™. Psychedelic Science Review covered the product’s entry into clinical trials in a September 2020 article. In a press statement, Cybin’s Chief Medical Officer at the time, Dr. Jukka Karjalainen, explained, “Compared to oral psilocybin capsules…the systemic bioavailability of orally-dissolving psilocybin film is expected to be quite high,” and the dose “…is expected to be a fraction of what is required in oral capsules. Taken together, these features have the potential to increase both the safety and efficacy of psilocybin when administered in this manner.”
IntelGenX is also working with ATAI to develop delivery products for the company’s psychedelic pharmaceutical candidates. After entering a feasibility agreement in August 2020, the companies expanded their collaboration in March 2021 with an initial 25% equity investment by ATAI into IntelGenX. Under a newer agreement in May 2021, the companies are developing prototypes to deliver novel formulations of Salvinorin A – the primary psychoactive molecule in the plant Salvia divinorum.
Their partners in the cannabis pharmaceutical industry include Tilray, Heritage, and Tetra Bio-Pharma.