In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Amit Etkin, founder and CEO of Alto Neuroscience ($450m, NYSE: ANRO) and former tenured professor at Stanford, to explore the emerging field of precision psychiatry.
Instead of treating diagnoses as single diseases, Alto is using brain-based biomarkers, including EEG, cognitive testing, and machine learning, to identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments. We discuss why psychiatry has historically lagged behind fields like oncology, how the DSM was never designed to reflect biology, and what it will take to move beyond trial-and-error drug development. We also dive into Alto’s clinical pipeline, including programs in treatment-resistant depression and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia — one of the most overlooked unmet needs in medicine.