Companies
MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)
Summary
MAPS is the nonprofit organization that incubated and sponsored the modern MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD program before the commercial approval effort moved into Lykos Therapeutics.
Why it matters
Even after spinning out the commercial path, MAPS still anchors the public history, research narrative, and training context around MDMA-assisted therapy.
Research notes
Context, reporting, and structured background for this dossier.
MAPS is a nonprofit research and educational organization founded in 1986. It became the best-known institutional home for the modern MDMA-assisted therapy movement and sponsored the research program that eventually fed the Lykos Therapeutics FDA application.
MDMA/PTSD program context
MAPS's public PTSD materials still frame MDMA-assisted therapy as investigational rather than approved, and they remain one of the clearest official summaries of how the program was built. The group's Phase 3 materials describe MAPP1 and MAPP2 as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-site studies designed to test MDMA-assisted therapy in severe PTSD.
That matters because MAPS is still the easiest place to understand the program's nonprofit origins, its clinical framing, and how advocates in the field explain the therapeutic model to the public.
Current role after the Lykos separation
Once the commercialization track moved into Lykos Therapeutics, MAPS stopped being the approval applicant, but it did not stop mattering. The organization remains central to public education, policy engagement, and therapist-training context around MDMA-assisted therapy, which makes it an important trust layer in the reporting record even after the FDA rejection.
Citations and source links
Source material used to ground or extend this dossier.
- [1] Official site
- [2] MAPS MDMA hub
Related reporting
Recent SCM reporting that overlaps this dossier’s company, program, or governance record.
- Where MAPS Is Now
After the FDA rejected Lykos' MDMA therapy application, MAPS shifted toward policy, education, and the long game.
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Related entities
Other dossiers that help connect this page to the wider reporting record.
- Lykos Therapeutics
Lykos Therapeutics is the commercial entity that took over the MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD approval path from MAPS and remains the focal company in the FDA midomafetamine saga.
- MDMA
- MDMA-Assisted Therapy