The Magic of Mushrooms

Led by public figures like Michael Pollan, Tim Ferriss, and even Joe Rogan, and leading institutions like Johns Hopkins, NYU, Berkeley, and Imperial College London, therapeutic psychedelics are going mainstream again

Because COMPASS breaks big pharma’s model -- it involves expensive in-person treatment and doesn’t need to be prescribed over a long period of time -- none of the major pharmaceutical companies are competing with COMPASS in the space.

It’s Expensive. COMPASS’ therapy is more than just a pill. It includes many hours of labor in preparation, during the session, and in the integration phase from trained therapists. That gets expensive quickly. Johnson & Johnson has faced reimbursement challenges with its eskatemine therapy, which also requires repeated in-office treatments.

COMPASS became the first publicly traded psychedelic drug stock when it went public on September 18th, 2020. It raised $127.5 million in order to fund research and clinical trials, and to continue developing digital technologies to pair with its therapies.

It’s tempting to group psychedelics companies like COMPASS in with the “green wave” of cannabis companies that have taken the market by storm starting with Tilray’s IPO in July 2018. But psychedelics companies like COMPASS are less like cannabis companies, which have mainly focused on recreational use, and more like biotech stocks focused on the ha... See more

It Works Too Well. Early research suggests that psilocybin therapy can cause remission of depressive symptoms in one to three sessions. Contrast that with SSRIs like Prozac, which patients take (and insurance companies pay for) for the rest of their lives. That means that there’s little recurring revenue, so COMPASS needs to convince the payers to ... See more

To ensure a consistent experience, COMPASS will roll out its own clinics. By contrast, MAPS, the non-profit using MDMA to treat PTSD, is focusing on training therapists to use the therapy in their own practices.

Despite the huge need, the last real innovation in the fight against mental illness was the release of Prozac in 1988.

Because of long-held negative or recreational associations, most people are unaware that psychedelics are the most promising treatment for a wide range of mental health issues -- from depression to alcoholism to anorexia -- that we’ve ever seen.