Psychedelic Business News Spotlight: April 23, 2021

This week in psychedelic business news: Silo gets a partner to market its psilocybin nasal spray, Cybin’s compounds successfully demonstrate psychedelic potential, and another cannabis company dips its toe into psychedelic R&D.

Atai Life Sciences, the biosciences company backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, announced it has submitted an S-1 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and plans to raise $100 million in an initial public offering (IPO). So far, the Berlin-based company has raised an aggregate of $362.3 million in private investments. Underwriters include Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Cowen, and Berenberg.

Atai, which was founded in 2018, is a drug development platform designed to acquire, incubate, and develop psychedelic therapies to treat mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, and addiction. 

Silo Wellness Inc., has entered into a multi-year licensing agreement with Latin American health and wellness company Jungle Med Inc., to exclusively produce, market, distribute, and sell its patent-pending metered-dosing psilocybin nasal spray in Colombia and Brazil. This is Silo’s first commercial transaction of its intellectual property. 

“Entering into this exclusive strategic licensing agreement with Jungle Med takes our intellectual property beyond Jamaica and marks our expansion to Latin America,” said Douglas K. Gordon, Silo’s chief executive officer. 

Silo also announced a news series of psilocybin-assisted wellness retreats beginning in May. The retreats are based in Jamaica’s Montego Bay, where Silo also operates a psilocybin mushroom and truffle cultivation and testing facilities. 

Psychedelic biotech company Cybin Inc., announced it has successfully demonstrated Proof of Concept for its deuterated tryptamine programs CYB003 and CYB004 for the treatment of depression and addiction. Unlike many long-acting psychedelic treatments that have received Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Cybin’s compounds are short-acting psychedelic tryptamines, possibly making them a more attractive product for psychedelic-assisted therapy. 

“This Proof-of-Concept data provides strong support for progressing Cybin’s drug development candidates CYB003 and CYB004 toward investigation new drug (IND) filings with the FDA,” said Cybin CEO Doug Drysdale.

Pharmaceutical company Tryp Therapeutics Inc., announced it is advancing two drug development platforms—Psilocybin-for-Neuropsychiatric Disorders (PFN), designed to treat chronic pain and eating disorders, and razoxane for soft tissue sarcomas, a rare cancer. The company says the platforms are based on chemistries with known safety profiles that allow Tryp to advance directly into Phase 2 clinical trials. The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s successful completion of an Initial Public Offering in December 2020.

Mindset Pharma Inc., announced that laboratory animal testing carried out by InterVivo Solutions Inc., has confirmed that the majority of its patent-pending compounds across four families of chemical scaffolds are showing that they will induce psychedelic effects in humans. As a result, Mindset has identified a “substantial pool of differentiated proprietary compounds with strong psychedelic effects” from which to select lead drug candidates for investigational new drug-enabling (IND-enabling) studies. 

“Once Mindset has completed in vivo screening of its compounds, the most promising candidate from each family will be selected as a lead and will then progress into IND-enabling studies,” said James Lanthier, Mindset’s chief executive officer. The company anticipates selecting an initial lead candidate shortly and plans to complete IND-enabling studies by mid-2022.

Cannabics Pharmaceuticals Inc., developer of cancer-related cannabinoid-based medicine, announced it is launching a new research program using the psychoactive ingredients in magic mushrooms, psylocibin and psilocin. The company had previously obtained a license from the Israeli Ministry of Health to conduct scientific research using the two psychedelic compounds at its laboratory in Rehovot, Israel. 

“We see the growing interest in psychedelic-based drug development, and we understand the potential of psychedelic-based medicine. We also believe that given our knowhow, experience and state-of-the-art in-house drug discovery platform, we are well positioned to take advantage of this growing market opportunity,” said Eyal Barad, Cannabics Pharmaceuticals co-founder and CEO.

Cannabics Pharmaceuticals has also been working on the development of specific psylocibin and psilocin IP for various medical conditions and indications, and is in the process of forming collaborations with leading research institutions as part of its new research program. “Our objective is to buildout this activity as a separate business unit which may eventually become a new subsidiary,” Barad said.