🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that wheels but never deals. That’s just how we roll. 🚲

Here’s what we got this week.

Despite all our hootin’ and hollerin’, psychedelic therapy is still a black box to many who could benefit.

So we’re giving you a chance to ask your questions directly, live.

Today at 1pm ET, swing by our Office Hours to learn how to have a legal psilocybin journey and make all the little decisions leading up to it.

Martyna Skalna (care navigator at Althea) and Avi Zadaka (licensed clinical facilitator in Colorado) have heard it all, so they’ll start by addressing the FAQs. Then they’ll open it up to you.

If you can’t make it, register for the replay.

Whoa, we’re halfway there: In this placebo-controlled “karaoke study,” an ayahuasca-like formulation reduced feelings of embarrassment and shame.
Doors of perception: New brain imaging research found mescaline has a paradoxical effect on the cerebellum, the gatekeeper of sensory information.
Something like a phenomenon: Researchers identified 125 phenomenological categories to describe the dimensions of an immersive DMT experience.
Blood is thicker than MDMA: Of all the values that shifted for psychedelic users in this study, the increased importance of family lasted longest.
Dream on: Two pilot studies are investigating whether engaging the embodied imagination could support integration of hard-to-describe psychedelic experiences.

Playing nice: The FDA’s latest guidance suggests the agency wants psychedelic drug developers to succeed.
Answer the call: Several states are moving to let first responders use psychedelics for PTSD.
Extra credit: Psychedelic therapy is getting attention in North Carolina, among both lawmakers and academics.
7-OH boy: The DEA proposed putting three kratom-related compounds into Schedule I.
The reckoning: A doctor has been charged with manslaughter after a woman died following his “Heart Protocol” ceremony, involving MDMA and ketamine.

Right on target: Psychedelic Alpha released an update to its signature drug development bullseye chart.
Watch and learn: This Wall Street Journal video explores why companies are racing to commercialize 5-MeO-DMT.
Everybody’s doing it: We can expect other Big Pharma companies to follow Lilly’s lead. (More on that below.)
Out with the old: Red Light Holland is rebranding as Rhelion Life Sciences.
Ctrl+P: PharmaTher is shifting its focus to AI and 3D printing to support personalized medicine, particularly with psychedelics and peptides.

Let the light in: Open a window somewhere in the world.
Summer reading: Greenstate highlights eight psychedelic books that should be in your queue.
Sign of the times: We finally know the name of a great Mayan astronomer.
Meme of the week: When you’re trying to enjoy a peaceful mushroom trip and suddenly remember…

Psychedelics are having a helluva year.

If the executive order in April was the biggest policy story we've ever covered, this has gotta be Tricycle Day’s biggest business story.

Eli Lilly, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, just struck a deal to acquire AtaiBeckley for up to $3.8 billion.

Lilly is effectively buying the three psychedelic assets in Atai’s pipeline. In the lead, there’s BPL-003, an intranasal 5-MeO-DMT spray in Phase 3 for treatment-resistant depression. Behind that, they’re also developing VLS-01 (an oral DMT film) and EMP-01 (an MDMA formulation).

So today, we’re looking back at Big Pharma's psychedelic shopping spree, which is clearly gaining momentum, just as we predicted.

To put this deal in perspective, Atai's own merger with Beckley Psytech, which created the company Lilly just bought, only (lol) cost about $390 million. That’s a ~10x flip in under a year.

Of course, Lilly isn’t taking a complete leap of faith here. Surely they’ve noticed Spravato (J&J’s esketamine spray) putting up numbers.

Besides, $3.8 billion is practically a rounding error for Lilly. Its market cap is almost $1.1 trillion. They’d already committed over $10B across eight other acquisitions this year before AtaiBeckley even came up.

Guess when you’re printing money with GLP-1s, it’s easy to take big swings. 🫠

Ever wondered what goes on in those psychedelic clinical trials? It’s all so hush-hush. Not in the top secret way, though. See, Compass Pathways just published a post-hoc analysis digging into what happens during a COMP360 psilocybin dosing session. And the answer is, a whole lot of sitting there minding your own business.

Researchers analyzed audio transcripts from Compass’s open-label Phase 2 trial of psilocybin for PTSD, measuring how much of each session was filled with speech. Lo and behold, administration sessions were 78% silent, while prep and follow-up were ~25-30% silent. When asked about the support they got, participants mostly described the reassuring presence of the provider, rather than anything they actively did or said to guide the experience.

Compass's CMO says this pattern shows the benefits come from “the psilocybin drug experience” itself. (And after the MDMA-assisted therapy FDA debacle, can you blame him?) But we'd push back a bit. Yes, the non-directive approach works. Thousands of clients from Oregon and Colorado’s programs, where that’s the standard, would surely agree. But a quiet dosing session doesn't prove prep and integration aren't essential; they're just not happening mid-trip. Alright, that’s enough yapping from us.

Remember Transcend Therapeutics, the company we just told you about that sold to Otsuka? Its founders must be feeling generous. They just turned a slice of that exit into a $20 million philanthropic initiative to increase psychedelic mental health access, run through a newly formed public benefit corporation.

Now, Transcend PBC won’t be opening grant applications to the public. Instead, they’re reaching out directly to a handful of organizations doing work aligned with their new mission. For now, the priorities are survivors of sexual trauma, substance use and addiction, end-of-life care, depression, and LGBTQ+ communities, and other underserved groups the field hasn't reached yet.

We love to see it. After you make the big bucks on *checks notes* an empathogen, it’s only fitting you turn around and show some corporate empathy. The founders say they're hoping their latest move inspires copycats. Yeah, driving shareholder value is great. But have you tried tending to those suffering?

Numinus offers a free live session every other week where you can ask anything about their psychedelic therapy training programs. Next one’s this Friday. If you do decide to enroll, code ALTHEA10 saves you 10%.

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.