Numinus Wellness Inc. announced its fiscal fourth quarter and full-year results Thursday. They achieved an increase in revenue of 81% from the same period year ago. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company noted that revenue was primarily impacted by the acquisition of Mindspace, a Montreal based organization focused on psychedelic programming.
Numinus 2021 Highlights
- In June 2021, Numinus filed a patent application for a proprietary rapid production process for psychoactive fungi. Keeping up with production is hard in the psychedelic space right now. Rapid production is incredibly important for the future supply chain of the industry. More and more companies are working on rapid production processes to keep up with trial demand and the predicted future market.
- In July 2021, Numinus received Health Canada approval for the MAPS-sponsored, single-arm, open-label safety and feasibility study evaluating MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. MDMA and Ketamine continue to be the front runners in terms of revenue driving for psychedelic organizations.
- On September 23, 2021, Numinus acquired the Neurology Center of Toronto for $1,000,000, allowing for the planned expansion of NCT into a comprehensive neurologic care center specialized in psychedelic neurology. Establishing a breadth of presence across all psychedelic industry verticals is an important step for any company that wants to survive for the long term.
- On November 25, 2021, Numinus received conditional approval to graduate to the TSX (from the TSXV), with the first day of trading scheduled for approximately December 16, 2021.
All in all it was a good year for Numinus. While the psychedelic industry suffered as a whole, that does not mean that there is not a bright future for organizations that are making the right moves.
Psychedelics startups don’t just want to just reinvent mental health. They also want to reinvent capitalism. And apparently, they’re having a measurable amount of early success.
Some True Believers
Stephen Jurvetson, Venture Capitalist and SpaceX board member. has become a true believer in the industry’s mission to fix the state of mental-health care. So much so, in fact, that he has begun to carve up his own estate. Overall he intends to donate around half of his net worth to fund psychedelic science. Ideas thrown around by Jurvetson and his co-panelists included hybrids of charitable giving and investing. They also said companies could take advantage of recent changes to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rules that raise the ceiling on crowdfunding to $75 million.
Non-traditional Investments
The gift is one of many donations sources that has helped bolster research in the field. Organizations like MAPS and the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative have both accepted charitable donations to fund research that could lead to new discoveries. Creative investments like these are needed right now. Public investment has fallen off in recent months. Any inflow of capital should be welcome, as long as there are no rigid strings attached. Psychedelic startups do need funding, and badly. Like biotech, it’s a high-risk industry with expensive clinical trials and regulatory uncertainty. And patents, a traditional financial engine for biotech, are harder to win. As plants that have been around for centuries, or molecules that have already made the rounds as street drugs.
Right now, there seems to be a highly concerted effort to change the American public’s attitude towards psychedelic drugs. I bet right now that if you switch on Netflix, Hulu, or other streaming services. You’re likely to be only a few clicks away from shows and documentaries on the usefulness of drugs. Mostly LSD, DMT, MDMA, and psilocybin. The ubiquitous nature of this is one of the real the first public signs that society is being primed to accept recreational and “prescription” use of psychedelics. Hopefully the trend continues around mental and spiritual ills.
The media is not the only group riding high on our mental health problems. New organizations are popping up all the time, seeking FDA approval for psychedelics. Like we discussed on the last briefing, the focus needs to be on mental health first, and profits second… within reasonable limits.
The real goal here is to potentially nationalize the use of these drugs. Drugs which have the potential to significantly alter how society functions. Giving new treatment options for those suffering from trauma, anxiety, and depression. The strategy we are seeing to promote psychedelics has been taken right out of the playbook of Big Marijuana. Rather than fight the battle of changing the schedule 1 designation at the federal level. There’s a major push to make these drugs respectable. Research studies and popular media will continue to promote medical benefits associated with these drugs. The endgame is for psychedelics to be legalized at every local and state level for recreational use.
When it comes to influencing how the public views psychedelics, what could possibly compete with the images of dancing hippies? Perhaps a growing body of scientific literature that claims the use of these drugs can help resistant anxiety, posttraumatic stress, depression, alcohol, and tobacco abuse?
Investment hype around psychedelics has continued through much of the last year, with even more companies hitting the big leagues. Among them was Mindset Pharma, which recently released a corporate update in addition to its financial results for the 2021 fiscal year. Mindset concluded the 2021 fiscal year with approximately $6.6 million in cash and believes that it is well capitalized for continued growth.
To date, Mindset has synthesized and screened over 100 compounds to select the optimal psychedelic drug candidates for progressing towards clinical trials. Mindsets overarching goal is to select the most promising clinical candidates from our ongoing discovery work and advance them into the clinic as quickly as possible.
The company has identified four families of compounds that it plans to advance to clinical trials.
Family 1
- A differentiated psilocybin-based analog. A novel and patentable drug for standardized clinic and research use.
Family 2
- Short-duration, psilocybin-based, analogs demonstrated superior efficacy and safety in head-to-head preclinical comparison to psilocin/psilocybin. Drugs like these are crucial for the further development of psychedelic therapy, where the time crunch is one of the biggest current issues. Unless researchers can get the “trip” down to a very standardized time (1-2 hours) it is unlikely that we can see mass use of psychedelics in regular therapy.
Family 3
- Long-acting, psilocybin-like analogs. Longer term/acting drugs are best used for mental illnesses like alcohol use disorder, or other similar dependency issues. They are best used for multi-day therapy sessions in centers similar to rehabilitation centers.
Family 4
- DMT and 5-MeO-DMT-inspired novel drug candidates.
Ex-Peleton CMO Vicki Reed has joined Field Trip as their Chief Growth Officer. This move is part of Field Trip’s mandate of expanding to new markets and bringing therapy into the mainstream.
Since their debut on the Nasdaq in July, Field Trip has gone balls to the wall in their marketing and expansion efforts. Hiring Mrs. Reed is a great way to continue distinguishing themselves from the other industry players. There is no denying the Peloton has massive market appeal. In no small part due to her efforts. She is saying all the right things so far
Some words from the new hire
“My role is to pursue opportunities to grow the company, whether that’s how to expand our offering to maximize potential with our clients or expand into new markets, or how to sell to new clients or maximize our revenue with efficient, scalable customer acquisition efforts. We are already working on all of the above and expect to see some exciting developments announced in the coming months. “
Since its launch in 2019, in Toronto, Canada, Field Trip Health’s treatments, which include ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, have generated rapid and meaningful improvements for many of its patients as measured by depression and anxiety scales. Field trip has a lot of work left to do. As an industry leader it is their responsibility to lead by example. They claim their mission is to help people live a life full of joy, wonder and fulfilment. Mrs. Reed has to continue the brands reflection of that.
- Will psychedelics follow the path of cannabis? Superficially, the drugs have a similar history, including a wild ride on the stock market and growing social acceptance. However, for those deep in the world of psilocybin, the active ingredients in magic mushrooms, and other psychedelics, the similarities stop there.
- A new study published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology sheds light on the mechanism connecting psychedelic use to improved mental health. The study found evidence of a pathway whereby the use of psychedelics increases spirituality, and in turn, leads to better emotion regulation. This improved emotion regulation then appears to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and disordered eating.
- A new bill filed in Florida has proposed the decriminalization of psychedelics, along with the rest of currently illegal drugs, and the promotion of rehabilitation instead of criminalization for drug-related offenses.
