The collapse of Field Trip Health
It’s an exciting time for psychedelics. Clinical trials using psychedelics to treat PTSD, addiction, depression and anxiety are proceeding apace. Oregon and Colorado are preparing to regulate psilocybin-assisted therapy. Cities are decriminalizing so-called natural medicines, and the state of Kentucky, of all places, recently decided to spend $42m to research the healing potential of ibogaine, a naturally occurring hallucinogen found in a West African shrub. Yes, Kentucky. And Texas.
This month, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) expects to welcome as many as 10,000 people to Denver, aka the Mile High City, for Psychedelic Science 23, the biggest gathering ever of the psychedelics industry.
All that’s missing is the industry.
Startup companies seeking to develop psychedelic medicines are struggling to raise money, and a few high-profile companies have filed for bankruptcy or been forced into mergers.
Last week, Lucid News published my story about Field Trip Health, a publicly-traded company that burned through $100m of investor money and is now being sold off in pieces. Here’s how the story begins:
Welcome to the era of psychedelic stocks,” declared Forbes.
It was October 2020. A startup called Field Trip Health had just gone public on the Canadian Securities Exchange. The birth of a psychedelics industry was upon us, some said.
These molecules “stand poised to fundamentally revolutionize how we consider mental, emotional and behavioral health,” said Ronan Levy, the co-founder and president of Field Trip.
He may well be right.
But Field Trip Health, a high-profile upscale chain of ketamine clinics that burned through nearly CA$100 million in investor money before collapsing in March, won’t be leading the way.
Instead, Field Trip’s story is a cautionary tale. Developing the potential of FDA-approved psychedelic medicines will require time, vast sums of patient capital and the support of regulators, government payors and private insurers so that psychedelic-assisted therapies can be fit into the existing health-care system in the U.S.
By most accounts, Field Trip’s ketamine-assisted therapy brought relief to patients, some of whom had exhausted all other options. That’s encouraging news.
But psychedelic-assisted therapy, for now, lacks a business model. How to bring its benefits to people who are suffering will be a major topic at Psychedelic Science 23. I’m looking forward to learning morein Denver.
You can read the rest of my story about Field Trip Health here at Lucid News.
