Ensysce lands $5.3M grant, completing $15.1M NIDA opioid-safety award
What's the deal? Ensysce Biosciences (NASDAQ:ENSC) has received a $5.3 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the San Diego clinical-stage drugmaker said on July 14, 2026. The award is the third consecutive year of NIDA funding and completes a $15.1 million multi-year grant.
What's the endgame? The money supports Ensysce's MPAR (Multi-Pill Abuse Resistance) overdose-protection technology and its lead agent, PF614-MPAR. It will fund completion of the PF614-MPAR-102 study and the long-term non-clinical work needed for a New Drug Application.
Why it matters: PF614-MPAR holds a Breakthrough Therapy designation from the US Food and Drug AdministrationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Unlike conventional abuse-deterrent formulations, it maintains therapeutic opioid exposure under normal use but automatically limits additional opioid release when excessive doses are ingested — a mechanism the company calls a "built-in safety switch."
Why now? Nearly 80,000 people die each year in the US from opioid overdoses, with prescription opioids a significant factor, according to chief executive officer Lynn KirkpatrickDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The funding "allows us to keep advancing MPAR, a new class of chemically engineered opioids designed to actively safeguard patients, even in situations involving misuse or dosing mistakes," Kirkpatrick said.
What's next? Ensysce's underlying TAAP and MPAR platforms are designed to apply across multiple drug classes. It is extending the approach into amphetamines and methadone, targeting pain, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and opioid use disorder.
The signal: At $5.3 million, the installment ranks in the 91st percentile of all-time US health grants, a sign of sustained federal appetite for tools that address the opioid crisis at the formulation level.
Read more: Associated Press
Image credit: ShebleyCL
