div > div.group > p:first-child"> Just weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved approved Johnson & Johnson's ketamine-like nasal spray for depression, a group of European technology investors just got together for the largest-ever private financing round for a psychedelic medicine biotech company, ATAI.
ATAI is also the largest investor in a start-up called Compass Pathways, which is setting itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin. ATAI invested alongside Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic Silicon Valley investor and Facebook board member who's increasingly dabbling in health and biotech. ATAI co-founders Lars Wilde and Florian Brand previously worked with Compass; a third founder, Christian Angermayer, is a German entrepreneur and investor.
Adding further legitimacy to the space, Johnson & Johnson, the pharma giant, puts years of investment into studying into the benefits and potential side effects of esketamine. Its approval by the FDA represented the first new drug for depression in decades, although the medical establishment has stressed that more research is needed to better understand the long-term use of ketamine.
I believe in the “euphoric” results that MDMA has had with people suffering from PTSD...