As Western medicine brings psychedelics into mainstream use, a growing movement is innovating new business models grounded in reciprocity and inclusion.
There’s no question that the psychedelic renaissance is in full bloom. After a decades-long battle to push through regulatory barriers and overcome long-enduring stigmas, psychedelics are poised to cross the threshold into a post-prohibition future of FDA approval, legalization, and a thriving biotech industry.
Hundreds of clinical trials have demonstrated the extraordinary potential of psychedelic compounds to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance-use disorders, and other psychological ailments. Today, ketamine is legal and widely available in clinics across the country. MDMA is projected to become FDA-approved for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder as early as 2021. Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression follows closely behind, with trials currently in Phase 2 of 3. Parallel decriminalization efforts have led to the legalization of psilocybin in Denver, Oakland, and Santa Cruz, with a ballot on the ticket in Oregon this November to legalize psilocybin for statewide use.
To investors, psychedelics are increasingly looking like a good bet. Last month, the psychedelic renaissance reached a new milestone when Compass Pathways, a London-based psilocybin research and therapy company, became the first psychedelic company to go public—receiving a post-IPO run-up valuation of $1.1 billion. Compass (which received seed investment from Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital) was granted Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA for COMP360, a new method for the large-scale production of synthetic psilocybin. The company is currently conducting an FDA Phase 2b clinical trial of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, with results expected in 2021.