Striving to develop
new therapies for neuroscience diseases

We are focused on providing improved treatments for devastating and life-threatening neuroscience diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. Even the most frequently diagnosed neuroscience diseases often lack adequate treatment options, many of which do not provide meaningful efficacy, pose challenges with adherence, or are associated with unwanted side effects. Addressing these underserved needs and patient communities is the focus of our research and development efforts.

Our approach to developing our therapeutic candidates is predicated on highly specific solutions to the challenges of treating neuroscience diseases that the pharmaceutical industry has attempted to address for years.

Our scientific strategy

Unlocking new treatment opportunities by understanding the neurocircuitry underlying the manifestation of symptoms

Achieving optimal therapeutic benefit and minimizing unintended side effects in neuroscience diseases requires tuning the specificity and dynamic range of neural networks.  Recent advancements in chemistry, genomics and proteomics have provided tools to enable a better understanding of the neural networks that underlie these diseases. Fine-tuning the dynamic range requires carefully-designed receptor pharmacology, such as allosteric modulation, to normalize neural network function without over-activation or over-suppression.

Our pipeline

Advancing a broad and diverse neuroscience pipeline

We are advancing a broad and diverse pipeline of small molecule therapies to address significant unmet medical needs and limited treatment options for patients suffering from some of the most devastating neuroscience diseases.

Our pipeline is comprised of multiple preclinical and clinical-stage therapeutic candidates that have the potential to achieve optimal therapeutic activity while minimizing the unintended side effects of currently available therapies.

Compound Disease Area Discovery Pre-clinical Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Mechanism
Lead Programs
Other Programs

If you’re a healthcare professional, learn more about our programs here.

Preclinical programs

In addition to our product candidates in clinical development, we plan to advance our preclinical pipeline across multiple neuroscience indications:

  • CVL-354, a selective kappa opiate receptor (KOR) antagonist that we are advancing in substance use disorder
  • A PDE4B inhibitor that we are advancing as an antipsychotic agent with the potential to avoid dose-limiting gastrointestinal side effects
  • An M4 full agonist for the treatment of mania associated with bipolar 1 disorder

We are pursuing a number of other undisclosed targets, including those with disease-modifying potential. Some of these programs were initiated by Pfizer while others were developed internally at Cerevel Therapeutics through application of human genetic analyses coupled with new technology platforms, such as artificial intelligence and DNA-encoded chemical libraries to establish novel chemical lead series.

We believe our science-based approach will create a leading neuroscience drug discovery and development engine to transform the lives of people living with neuroscience diseases for decades to come.