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Compass Pathways (psilocybin therapy company) announces IPO
🕑 Added 2020-09-04 03:26:07 +0000 UTCThis is an interesting development as I believe Compass will become the biggest publicly traded company so far that is solely focused on psychedelics. I'm not that enthusiastic about their prospects from an investment standpoint but I will definitely be keeping my eye on them. Right now their focus is on using psilocybin along with licensed therapists, to help people with treatment resistant depression. The reason I'm not convinced about the investment aspect is that their treatment program will undoubtedly be very expensive either for patients or insurance companies, as it requires so many billable hours from a psychiatrist with consultations, pre-session meetings, a 6 hour psilocybin session, post session integration meetings, etc. I wonder if they will be able to bring the cost down to a reasonable level? Then again I'm sure these patients are already quite an expense to insurers, and if the psilocybin therapy works, perhaps it will actually be acceptable to insurers.
Another issue that might affect the company are current decriminalization efforts such as the upcoming vote in Oregon. If a person can travel there or to other jurisdictions and have an affordable, state sanctioned psilocybin session with a trained facilitator, that might lower the value of Compass Pathways' solutions.
In addition to the cost issue, there is a bit of a paradox here: Pretty much everyone has historically agreed that giving psychedelics to people with serious mental health problems is hazardous and unpredictable, and yet this company will ONLY be giving psychedelics to people with serious mental health problems! I had heard only positive results previously, which was encouraging, and indeed this even earned the company break through therapy status with the FDA. But now we are seeing some negative reports in the company's filing disclosures. In the phase 2 trial, two patients had serious adverse reactions and had to be hospitalized: "One patient experienced adjustment disorder—symptoms that can occur after a stressful life event—that led to hospitalization. The investigator deemed the event, which happened more than a month after treatment, to be of moderate severity and possibly related to the drug. Another patient was hospitalized with suicidal ideation."
I suppose only 2 people having adverse reactions is not all that troubling in the grand scheme, and also note that there is no proof that the psilocybin was even responsible for these incidents.
Some in the psychedelic community have opposed the commercialization of psychedelics but I think it's a net positive. These companies are contributing to the body of research on best practices, safety, and efficacy for specific uses, and the world stands to gain a lot from that. I also believe that commercialization will ultimately pave the way for decriminalization. In fact as soon as the first psilocybin therapy is officially granted FDA approval, the US government will have to reschedule it, which in an of itself is a major change and accomplishment after all these decades of being relegated to schedule 1 classification.
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Manofmars
A vice president of J.P. Morgan, his wife Valentina P. Wasson M. D. spent four months doing mushrooms in Mexico. Gordon Wasson wrote in a Time Magazine article in 1957 about the magic mushrooms in the remote mountains of Mexico but it did not start a rush of people to start doing them. The CIA was using mushrooms as part of MK-ULTRA as early as 1955. There are those that say the article was written intentionally for the CIA to see if people would go on their own seeking hallucinogen's. Henry & Clare Luce (owners of Time} were said to have used psilocybin frequently.
