This week in psychedelic business news: The industry's first major merger; NeonMind launches clinics; a portfolio of patents is acquired.
This week in psychedelic business news, we are witnessing the first major psychedelics merger with Numinus Wellness (TSX: NUMI) (OTCQX: NUMIF) announcing plans to acquire Novamind (CSE: NM) (OTCQB: NVMDF) in an all-share transaction, by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement, for total consideration of approximately $26.2 million (CAD) on a fully diluted in-the-money basis. Following the transaction, expected to be completed in June, the combined company will have 13 wellness clinics and be positioned as a leading psychedelic-assisted therapy provider in North America, leading its peer group in revenue with $9.9 million in annual revenue. If you currently hold Novamind stock, you do not need to do anything. When the transaction is finalized, each Novamind share you own will automatically be transformed into 0.84 of a Numinus share.
NeonMind Biosciences (CSE: NEON) (OTCQB: NMDBF) (FRA: 6UF) announced plans this week to launch 10 specialty mental health clinics over the next 3 years through alliances with SRx Health Solutions and BioScript Solutions, leading Canadian specialty healthcare services and medical treatment providers. Initially these clinics will offer IV-Ket, and is set to open the first location this summer in Mississauga, Ontario. “By partnering with SRx Health Solutions and BioScript, we can leverage their established clinic network and operational excellence in specialty medical treatments to introduce our mental health treatments in an expedient and capital efficient manner and importantly, working with an infrastructure that enables scaling” said Rob Tessarolo, President and CEO of NeonMind Biosciences.
Delic Holdings Corp. (CSE: DELC) (OTCQB: DELCF) (FRA: 6X0) has received a Health Canada 56 Research Exemption that will allow scientists to conduct research and perform tests on a number of compounds outside of psychedelic mushrooms, including MDMA, LSD, DMT, mescaline and 2C-B. Additionally, Delic Labs has received a Health Canada 56 exemption to acquire 60 grams of psilocybin mushrooms from Nectar Health Sciences Laboratory Division Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Psilobrain Therapeutics Inc. Delic Labs' latest exemptions enable the company to develop innovative analytical methods for psychedelic research. “We look forward to exploring these novel compounds with the goal of commercializing the research once our Dealer's License is secured,” says Delic Labs co-founder Dr. Markus Roggen.
Terran Biosciences is acquiring Blumentech S.L.‘s full patent portfolio and accompanying data, which includes multiple groundbreaking discoveries by the late Dr. Jordi Riba Serrano, a renown ethno-pharmacologist and pioneer of psychedelics research, who founded the psychedelic business in 2017 and passed away in 2020. Dr. Riba was the first to conduct a placebo-controlled study of ayahuasca in 1999, and published extensively on the ability of the molecule DMT to induce neurogenesis. His findings demonstrated novel ways to maintain the therapeutic and neurogenic benefit of psychedelic compounds while also reducing potential side effects and increasing the potential for use across a much wider population of patients. “We are honored to partner with Blumentech and advance these assets as quickly as possible. Dr. Riba truly opened the door to this entire field of research, and we hope we too can open doors for patients with these innovative approaches,” says Dr. Sam Clark, CEO of Terran.
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What irony: Dr. Markus Roggen had to retract two articles (of the 3 he published) because he manipulated data, which amounts to scientific misconduct.
Please see:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja412119q
and
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201309901
Willful data manipulation to remove evidence of impurities would constitute an ethical breach and is seen as such by peers in the field of chemistry as you must be aware.
It is highly ironic that Dr. Roggen would now be running CBDV-Delic Labs, an analytical testing company where adherence to standards for data presentation would be paramount in order to address issues of purity and detect various analytes in extracts etc. Why anyone would invest in DELIC is puzzling to say the least.