cns-therapeutics
(4)
Axonis Therapeutics
Axonis Therapeutics is a Boston-based, neuro-focused biotechnology company developing first- and best-in-class oral small-molecule medicines that target KCC2, a chloride transporter that acts as the brain's master regulator of inhibitory neurotransmission. Spun out of research from Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Universite Laval, Axonis is advancing its lead candidate AXN-027 - a first-in-class KCC2 potentiator - toward clinical proof of concept in epilepsy, chronic pain and other CNS disorders, backed by an oversubscribed $115 million Series A closed in 2024.
Joanna Stanicka
Joanna Stanicka is the co-founder, president and CEO of Axonis Therapeutics, a Boston clinical-stage biotech developing first-in-class oral medicines that target the brain chloride transporter KCC2 to treat epilepsy, neuropathic pain and spinal cord injury. A Harvard-trained neuroscientist who began her career in cancer biology in Ireland, she moved from the bench to the boardroom, taking Axonis from a Boston Children's Hospital discovery to a company that raised a $115 million Series A in 2024 and pushed its lead drug, AXN-027, into first-in-human trials.
Sensorium Therapeutics
Sensorium Therapeutics is a Boston-based biotechnology company building first-in-class central nervous system (CNS) medicines by decoding nature's neuroactive chemistry with AI. Founded out of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, its proprietary SensAI platform mines more than 50 million curated relationships across ethnopharmacology, chemistry, pharmacology, and clinical outcomes to identify de-risked starting points for new drugs. Its lead program, SNTX-2643, is a rapid-acting precision serotonin modulator for anxiety that received FDA IND clearance in 2025.
Terran Biosciences
Terran Biosciences is a platform biotech developing therapeutics and technologies for neurological and psychiatric disease. It runs one of the industry's largest psychedelic development programs - psilocybin, LSD, MDMA derivatives and novel prodrugs - alongside late-stage schizophrenia assets licensed from Sanofi and Pierre Fabre, GMP psychedelic manufacturing, and NM-101, an FDA-cleared cloud platform for neuromelanin MRI analysis.