On Friday, June 12, 1970, Major League Baseball pitcher Dock Ellis, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, became a baseball legend. Ellis threw a no-hitter, which is a perfect game in baseball terminology, and he did it while he was tripping on acid.
It’s quite a remarkable story, and truly an amazing accomplishment altogether, and part of a bigger story surrounding the ties between PEDs and how they’ve been boosting elite athletes’ success for centuries. But while in the past the focus has been on how these performance enhancing substances can enhance physical performance, for obvious reasons, little attention has been given to how certain substances can help combat other issues, such as anxiety, depression, addiction, and even brain trauma.
A recent episode of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Guembel highlighted the lives of four athletes who have seen life-altering benefits from the use of psychedelics. Each of the former professional athletes, Daniel Carcillo (NHL), Kerry Rhodes (NFL), Ian McCall (UFC), and Dean Lister (UFC) played tough, gruelling sports that took a toll on both their physical bodies and their mental health.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a progressive and fatal brain disease associated with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), including concussions and repeated blows to the head.1 CTE is commonly seen in athletes that engage in highly physical, Gladiator-style sports, such as football and boxing. While it’s not likely that spectators will stop watching these physically combative sports any time soon, the need for therapeutic treatments and alternative medicines is in high demand.
Validation for these radical alternatives is garnering interest from major medical institutions. For example, John Hopkins University recently launched the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research and already has the UFC interested, after another one of their fan favorite athletes was declared permanently disabled.2 Notably, cities are beginning to decriminalize the use of psychedelics: Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Somerville, and Vancouver (Canada), have already done so, and now the entire state of Oregon has not only decriminalized psilocybin but legalized it for therapeutic use.3
In addition, the FDA has recently given three psychedelic therapies, including Molly Assisted Therapy and Psilocybin Assisted Therapy, a Breakthrough Therapy Designation, potentially speeding up a future approval of a psychedelic medicine.
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One Leading Psychedelic Company is Focused on Creating Next-Gen Medicines to Address a Growing Global Mental Health Crisis
Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is a psychedelic medicine biotech company that discovers, develops, and deploys psychedelic-inspired medicines and therapies to address addiction and mental illness. The Company was the first company to go public in the psychedelic medicine space and is a pioneer in the psychedelics market. It is backed by big-name investors including Kevin O’Leary, the notorious Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank investor, and Bruce Linton, the founder and former CEO of Canadian company Canopy Growth.
There’s been a strong interest for MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) stock, with the company recently closing an upsized financing of C$92.1 million,4 having raised a total of C$237.2 million to date. Not only has the Company successfully attracted retail investors, but there is also strong institutional interest, with the leading psychedelics market investment bank Canaccord Genuity sponsoring MindMed and providing analyst coverage.
With a war chest of cash, MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is focused on assembling a compelling pipeline of innovative treatments based on psychedelic substances, including Psilocybin, acid, molly, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, and an Ibogaine derivative, 18-MC.
As 40% of US citizens experienced a mental health issue or substance abuse addiction during the current health crisis, and a further 11% considered suicide, MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is preparing three separate phase II clinical trials; one focused on using Acid Assisted Therapy for Anxiety, another using smaller amounts of acid known as acid microdosing for Adult ADHD, and the last is focused on the $700 billion a year substance abuse crisis using the Company’s Ibogaine derived molecule, 18-MC, to create a potential “antibiotic for addiction.”
The MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) executive team brings extensive health industry experience to the company’s groundbreaking approach to developing the next-generation of psychedelic inspired medicines and therapies.
7 Reasons Why MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) Could Potentially Be the Best Psychedelic Stock to Watch in 2021
- Company is fully-funded with C$183 million in cash, to execute on its plans.
- Pioneers in establishing a new category of medicine to address growing mental health crisis (40% of US has mental health illness or addiction, 11% considered suicide, according to CDC)
- Robust development pipeline, with $100+ billion dollar total addressable market of new asset class of medicines
- First company in history with a clinical trial combining acid and molly.
- Growing library of intellectual property, with a strong research and development team in Switzerland and US
- Potential for Breakthrough Therapy Designation on Phase 2 clinical trials
- Seasoned Leadership Team and Roster of High-Profile Stakeholders (Bruce Linton, Kevin O’Leary)
Press Releases
- MindMed Announces the Addition of Stanford University Neuroscientist as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board
- MindMed Increases Cash on Hand to CAD $205.2m (USD $162m), Closes Financing of CAD $19.5m (USD $15.4m)
- MindMed Announces C$19.5 Million Bought Deal Private Placement Offering
- MindMed Closes Acquisition of HealthMode, a Leading Machine Learning Digital Medicine Company
- MindMed’s Neutralizer Study Begins
- MindMed Signs Partnership with Swiss Psychedelic Discovery Startup MindShift Compounds AG, Expands Development Pipeline and IP Portfolio with Next-Gen Psychedelic and Empathogenic Compounds
The Looming Mental Health Crisis Might End Up Having a Bigger Impact Than CV19 on Society, and MindMed Might Become the Tesla of Mental Health
While mainstream news has been focused on a myriad of hot-button topics such the US election, the global health crisis, and civil unrest, major news outlets have for the most part brushed over a deeper and growing health crisis potentially far bigger than CV19 itself that has been brewing, and could have far-reaching consequences for society for years to come.
We are in the midst of a growing global mental health crisis that may prove to be more impactful than a virus. Anxiety already plagues over 40 million Americans5 and more than 284 million people worldwide,6 and the pandemic is only making things worse. A recent poll conducted in mid-July reported that 53% of adults in the United States said their mental health has been negatively impacted due to worry and stress over CV19.
Many adults are also reporting specific negative impacts on their mental health and wellbeing, such as difficulty sleeping (36%) or eating (32%), increases in alcohol consumption or substance use (12%), and worsening chronic conditions (12%), due to worry and stress over the CV19.7
Putting it all together, it’s shocking how damaging this mental health crisis could prove to be to society, with prolonged effects that will likely impact peoples’ work productivity, family relationships, and overall contribution to society. To cope, people have been turning to legal substances like alcohol, which is a depressant that has long-lasting negative effects on the brain and body and can worsen the symptoms of anxiety and depression, and prescription anti-depressants and sleeping pills that are highly addictive.
But now, psychedelics, which were once the subject of great controversy and negative stigma, are quickly becoming legitimized as a treatment for a wide range of mental health and addiction issues. We are experiencing a revival of scientific and clinical research into alternative psychedelic therapies, which are emerging at the forefront of innovation in the treatment of mental health issues.
MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is using substances like psilocybin (an active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”), acid, and molly (also known as “E”) to combat psychiatric conditions like anxiety, substance abuse withdrawal, and attention deficit disorder (ADHD). While treatments for some of these mental disorders already exist, many are not curative, nor are they completely effective in all patients – many also carry with them side effects that can be detrimental.
MindMed is developing formulations of psychedelic substances that can bypass the negative side effects of existing prescription medications. When used under the appropriate therapist guidance and setting, these psychedelic substances show promise for substantially improving well-being and reducing mental health issues, alongside an excellent safety profile.
And, the Company is soon entering Phase II Clinical Trials for not one, but three psychedelic programs: 18-MC (an Ibogaine Derivative) for substance abuse withdrawal treatment, Microdose acid for Adult ADHD, and acid Assisted Therapy for Anxiety Disorders.
Most recently, MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) officially launched Project Lucy, a commercial medical development program for the treatment of anxiety disorders.8 The company plans to initiate a Phase 2b human efficacy trial of acid, which is focused on experiential or “hallucinogenic” doses of acid, administered by a therapist. Project Lucy is the first experiential, psychedelic-assisted therapy in MindMed’s development pipeline, offering investors a unique and potentially very lucrative opportunity.
But that’s just one area where MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is making serious progress. The company is also entering Phase II Clinical Trials for the use of 18-MC (an Ibogaine derivative), for addiction treatment, which seeks to address the ongoing substance abuse crisis that is affecting millions of Americans and has cost the US economy trillions of dollars so far. In fact, the substance abuse crisis was estimated to cost American society approximately $631 billion between 2015 and 2018.9 And just like anxiety and depression, the substance abuse crisis has only been getting worse during CV19, especially with more people turning to meds to overcome CV19-related stress.
MindMed is the only publicly listed Psychedelics company that has not one, but THREE Phase II Clinical Trials in progress. In addition, the company is collaborating with Leading Psychedelic Researchers in Switzerland and the Netherlands, and has purchased and received an Exclusive License to ONE OF THE LARGEST portfolios of data on both acid and molly as potential medicines. MindMed is conducting Multiple Ongoing Phase 1 Trials on N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, molly, acid, molly-acid, and Psilocybin with one of the leading research labs globally for psychedelic R&D in Basel, Switzerland, the birthplace of acid.
In comparison to Compass Pathways, which broke into the public markets psychedelics game last year when it IPO’d in September as the first psychedelics company on a big US exchange, MindMed has a potential major leg up thanks to having more trials than Compass. Compass currently has only one, singular trial ongoing, for the use of psilocybin therapy on treatment-resistant depression – and if that trial isn’t successful, Compass doesn’t have anything to fall back on as of yet.
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Why does the number of trials a company has planned or ongoing matter? Well, it comes down to having more skin in the game. Just like any biotech or medical company, the more clinical trials a psychedelics-focused company has, the more molecules it is working with and the more formulas it can develop – the greater amount of chances it has of bringing its products into commercialization. In other words, the more “shots on goal” a psychedelics company has, the more chances it has to net a big win. And so far, Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) is ahead of the game.
The Global Health Crisis is Ushering in This Next Trillion-Dollar Industry According to The Economist
While 70% of American hospitals still fax and mail patient records and 60% of US counties do not have a SINGLE psychiatrist, it’s becoming obvious that there’s a growing need for change fast. Innovative digital medicine platforms are needed to scale and launch psychedelic medicines and new approaches to mental healthcare. In fact, McKinsey estimates that global digital-health revenues—from telemedicine, online pharmacies, wearable devices, and so on—will rise from $350 billion last year to $600 billion in 2024. Large parts of America’s $3.6 trillion health-care market are in for a complete digital makeover and MindMed is leading the charge with a potential solution for Mental Healthcare capable of scaling psychedelic medicines and measuring patient outcomes for various mental illnesses. MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) recently launched a digital medicine division, Albert, named after the inventor of acid, to build out this much needed infrastructure.
MindMed will also be acquiring HealthMode, a leading machine learning digital medicine company. HealthMode uses AI-enabled digital measurement to increase the precision and speed of clinical research and patient monitoring. MindMed plans to incorporate HealthMode into Albert, which will help to further MindMed’s goal of integrating digital medicine into the psychedelics industry, creating an all-encompassing digital mental health platform for psychedelics medicine.
MindMed Co-Founder and Co-CEO J.R. Rahn said, “We believe that the next frontier in psychedelic medicine will be to quantify with great precision psychedelic assisted therapy’s impact on patient populations. This new division [Albert] will not only build apps, technologies and other platforms to help the patient, but hopefully also make the medical community comfortable with this novel treatment paradigm for mental health and addiction by measuring the potential value to their patient populations and ultimate savings to insurers.”
Recent advancements in digital therapeutics have the potential to enable a real-time assessment of efficacy in both clinical trials and real-world settings, leading to a more robust understanding of the value of a treatment and long-term impact on patient outcomes.
In the News
- MindMed Surges, Putting It at Forefront of Psychedelic Euphoria – Bloomberg
- Turn On, Tune In, Get Well – The New Yorker
- Business Insider Reports Psychedelics Are Potential $100b Market – Business Insider
- This New York City Startup Wants To Turn Acid Into An FDA-Approved Medicine For Anxiety Disorder – Forbes
Why Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street are Piling Money into Psychedelic Therapies and Mental Healthcare
While psychedelic medicine is gaining momentum in the scientific community, it’s also attracting Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors.
Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic Silicon Valley investor and Facebook board member, is a key figurehead for multiple sectors and is now actively investing in the psychedelics market. Thiel has been backing a German company called ATAI Life Sciences, which had the largest ever private financing round for a psychedelics medicine biotech company, after the US FDA approved Johnson & Johnson’s nasal spray for depression. They’ve since raised another $125 million dollars to advance their own pipeline and invest in other psychedelic companies.
One such company is Compass Pathways, which was the first psychedelics developer to list on the NASDAQ and is now valued at US$1.6 billion as of January 29, 2021. The explosion of interest in the sector has continued to attract multiple new initial public offerings and institutional interest.
Investment banks such as Canaccord Genuity Corp, Eight Capital, CIBC, and Gravitas Securities have led multiple financings raising many millions of dollars for new psychedelic companies going public.
As earlier noted, heavyweight investors, Kevin O’Leary (Shark Tank) and Bruce Linton (Canopy Growth) are also backing the industry as founding investors in Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ), which has raised a total of roughly C$237.2 million dollars (US$183.8 million). Not only is MindMed a leader as one of the earliest psychedelic companies to go public, it’s also attracted significant investments to capitalize on it’s robust candidate pipeline. Having a lot of capital is extremely important for a psychedelic company especially, because it means having the money to fund clinical trials, which are known to be quite expensive. MindMed clearly demonstrates that it’s able to raise the capital needed to fund these all-important trials.
One signal that demonstrates that this trend is early, and here to stay is the global launch of Horizons ETFs ‘Horizons Psychedelic Stock Index ETF’. This is the first ETF offering dedicated exposure to the psychedelics sector. As larger institutions seek exposure to the sector, they will turn to indexing and naturally, all the companies included in the ETF will benefit. MindMed (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ) happens to be one of the core holdings, making up approximately 9.80% of the index.14
Leadership Team: The Perfect Blend of Technologists, Acclaimed Scientists, Mental Health Experts, and Successful Entrepreneurs
JR Rahn – Co-Founder, Director & Co-CEO.
Rahn is a former Silicon Valley tech executive who realized that transformational solutions to mental illness and addiction might lie in psychedelic medicines. After 2 years of his own research and investment in psychedelic research, he partnered with medication development veteran Stephen Hurst to start MindMed in 2019. Before starting MindMed, Rahn worked in market expansion and operations at Uber, after which he was backed by the Silicon Valley tech accelerator Y Combinator for his company Upgraded, which partnered with Apple to provide device financing for Apple customers in Europe.
Dr. Miri Halperin Wernli, PhD – (President).
Dr. Halperin Wernli is a senior biotech and biomedical executive with over 30 years of strategic and operational leadership in the health industry and a deep understanding of clinical psychiatry and of medical and product development in heavy regulated environments. Dr. Halperin Wernli co-founded Creso, a company listed on the Australian Stock exchange (ASX). Dr. Halperin Wernli is a skilled clinician in child and adult psychiatry and an experienced health leader with skills and broad expertise in Medication Development, Regulatory Affairs, Project & Portfolio Management, Development Finance & Controlling, and Corporate Strategy and Governance.
Rob Barrow, PhD – Chief Development Officer.
Mr. Barrow is an accomplished health executive and clinical pharmacologist with over a decade of experience leading medication development programs in a variety of disease areas. Mr. Barrow previously served as Director of [Medication] Development & Discovery at Usona Institute, where he oversaw preclinical, clinical and regulatory development efforts for all of Usona’s development programs. Prior to joining Usona, Mr. Barrow served as Chief Operating Officer of Olatec Therapeutics where he oversaw the execution of numerous early- and late-stage clinical trials in the fields of analgesics, rheumatology, immunology, and cardiovascular disease. In addition, he has been responsible for the design and execution of preclinical research programs for new molecular entity medications in CNS conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease. Mr. Barrow holds a Masters degree in Pharmacology from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Wake Forest University, where he graduated summa cum laude.
Donald Gehlert, PhD – Chief Scientific Officer.
Dr. Gehlert has extensive experience in medication discovery and expertise in key functional areas of exploratory development and disease biology. During his career at Lilly, he led or participated in teams that introduced 19 molecules into the Lilly pipeline including both small and large molecule therapies. He also participated on Phase I and II clinical development teams that designed and delivered translational proof of concept studies in the areas of ADHD, obesity, AUD, depression, pain, and migraine. He’s a co-author on 182 publications and a co-inventor on 15 issued and pending patents.
8 Investment Highlights for Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. (NEO: MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD) (FRA:MMQ):
MindMed is a leading pure-play psychedelics company with multiple programs in Phase 2 Clinical Trials.
At the forefront of medicine creating a new biotech asset class, which is focused on treating mental health.
MindMed has the broadest and most diversified pipeline of psychedelics
Fully-financed with C$183 million in cash to advance scientific pipeline through FDA process.
Seasoned management team and board with an extensive amount of industry experience attached to a variety of companies and approved medications, including Lilly, Nektar, BVGH, NuGen, Onyx, Roche, Pfizer, Allelix, SGC, Y Combinator, and Uber.
Support from high-profile investors, and scientific advisory board members, including Canopy Growth founder and former CEO Bruce Linton and Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary.
Second largest holding in the ‘Horizons Psychedelic Stock Index ETF’ at 9.80%.
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