Psychedelics Inc.
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Philanthropic dollars helped to create today's psychedelic renaissance by funding medical research into the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin and LSD. The research has generated a great deal of excitement, as I reported last year in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and in Medium.
Now, startup companies want to bring psychedelic medicines to market. That's the topic of a story that I posted today at Medium.
Here's how it begins:
Despite Covid-19, a crashing economy and formidable legal obstacles, a growing number of entrepreneurs and investors are betting that medicines derived from psychedelic drugs can become a real business and heal millions of people. They are joining the researchers, activists, philanthropists and journalists who until now have been driving what’s been called the psychedelic renaissance.
A dozen or more startup companies are developing medicines from psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine and LSD, all of which are illegal in the US, as well as from ketamine, a legal anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties. They hope to treat a surprisingly wide range of mental conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, addiction, even Alzheimer’s disease.
This is excellent news. Developing new drugs is an expensive proposition. Especially in today's tough environment for fundraising, nonprofits are likely to have a hard time bringing in enough donations to stage clinical trials, secure regulatory approval, manufacture and distribute the medicines, persuade doctors to use them and convince insurance companies to pay for them.
Investors, by contrast, may be willing to risk their money with the hope of eventually making a financial return. Just this week, Otsuka, a global pharmaceutical company based in Japan, invested in Compass Pathways, a UK-based startup that aims to help people suffering from treatment-resistant depression by giving them psilocybin along with therapy. To the best of my knowledge, that's the first investment by an established pharmaceutical company in psychedelic medicines.
You can read the full story here on Medium.
