🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that’s trying not to let perfect be the enemy of good. If you think we’re doing a decent job (or not), leave us an honest review at the bottom of this email. 🙏

Here’s what we got this week.

• Cybin announces a 100% response rate 💯

• Numinus sells its clinics and pivots to tech 📱

• MDMA therapy is surprisingly cost effective 🤑

• 46 experts explain how to transform trauma 💪

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Correlation ≠ causation: People who visited the ER for a psychedelic-related incident were 21x more likely to develop schizophrenia than the general pop.
Trip optional: UC Davis neuroscientists figured out how to decouple psychedelics’ anti-anxiety and hallucinogenic effects.
Egg-cellent: Psilocybin-assisted therapy improved anxiety and depression in patients with ovarian cancer.
Night cap: In a small trial, people with fibromyalgia saw improvements in pain severity and sleep quality from psilocybin.
Rats! PETA says experimenting on animals is leading psychedelic research astray.
Race relations: Psilocybin seems to affect white people and people of color differently.

🏛️ Policy

Secretary of Altered State: Trump tapped RFK Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has plans for psychedelics.
Listen up: The DEA has begun its 10-day hearing on scheduling DOI and DOC.
Pump the brakes: As Colorado puts the final tweaks on its natural medicine program, some cities are passing local restrictions.
Not so fast: Vermont’s psychedelic task force says the state isn’t ready for legalization.

📈 Business

Seeing red: atai, GH Research, and Filament Health all posted losses this quarter.
Secure the bag: Enveric Biosciences is licensing its psychedelic drug candidate to MycoMedica for $62 million.
Bullish: Psychedelic Alpha’s investor survey shows a positive overall sentiment, but state-level markets are not appealing.
There it is! WHOOP users can now log psychedelic journeys with their wearable fitness trackers.
Music for mushrooms: Oregon’s Shrooms Cafe just hosted the state’s first legal psilocybin concert.

🫠 Just for fun

Nile high club: Ancient Egyptians drank a ritual cocktail of psychedelics, alcohol, and bodily fluids.
Toad said knock you out: Mike Tyson claims a psychedelic revelation inspired him to fight Jake Paul. (He’s smoked Bufo at least 80 times.)
One small step for fungi: NASA wants to build habitable space colonies out of mushrooms.
5D field guide: Behold, a visual taxonomy of DMT entities.
Meme of the week: When society tells you you can’t eat mushrooms…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

Cybin sprints ahead

Remember when everyone thought 2024 would be the year psychedelic medicine went mainstream?

Yeah, about that… First, the FDA rejected Lykos’s MDMA application. Then, Compass hit more delays. Hate to say it, but it’s starting to feel like these “breakthrough” therapies still have a long way to go. (So far the only thing they’re breaking is hearts. 💔)

But wait, what's that sound? It's Toronto-based Cybin, coming in hot with some impressive data from their Phase 2 depression trial.

Here's what they found after 12 months of following patients who got just two 16mg doses of CYB003, their novel psilocin analog.

• 💯 No patient left behind: 100% of participants saw a major improvement in their depression.

• 🏃‍➡️ Lasting remission: 71% stayed depression-free the whole year.

• 📉 Big improvement: Depression scores dropped ~23 points on average.

• 🛟 Solid safety: No serious side effects or suicidal thoughts were reported.

Cybin isn't wasting any time building on the momentum. They just launched PARADIGM, an ambitious Phase 3 program made up of three pivotal trials with 1,100 total patients. And unlike other psychedelic studies, they're letting participants stay on their antidepressants—a huge win for real-world applicability.

For whatever it’s worth, Cybin got FDA’s breakthrough designation early this year, too. With $154 million (Canadian) in the bank and Phase 3 results expected in 2026, Cybin might actually win the race to bring psychedelic medicine to market.

May the best synthetic mushroom win? 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Exit through the clinic door

Hmm, maybe running ketamine clinics isn't all it's cracked up to be. Numinus Wellness just agreed to sell its five Utah treatment centers to psychiatric care provider Stella for $3.53 million. But the real story isn't the sale; it's what comes next. Time for Plan B.

The Vancouver-based company is pivoting hard into clinic management software, betting that their experience with insurance billing is worth more than the clinics themselves. After serving 50,000 patients and processing 250,000 insurance claims, they might be onto something. Stella seems to think so. They're partnering up to share operational data from their own network of mental health clinics.

This dramatic shift comes after a rough year for Numinus. Revenue is down 16%, losses are mounting, and that whole MDMA therapy thing didn’t exactly go as planned (thanks for nothing, FDA). But maybe an asset-light tech business makes more sense than trying to run money-losing clinics. You know what they say: sometimes the real gift is the insurance codes you learned along the way.

The price of healing

How much would you pay to cure PTSD? According to a new Lykos-funded study, MDMA therapy might cost $48,000, but it could still be worth every penny. The analysis suggests that despite the hefty price tag, MDMA-assisted therapy is actually cost-effective compared to traditional treatment.

Here's the math: Three MDMA sessions plus therapy will run about $48,000 ($36,000 for the medicine + $12,000 for the professionals). Regular therapy alone costs $12,000. But when you factor in fewer healthcare visits and better health outcomes over five years, MDMA therapy starts looking like a bargain—at least by World Health Organization standards.

Of course, this argument comes from the same company whose treatment just got rejected by the FDA. But the numbers raise an interesting question: If MDMA therapy could save money in the long run by actually helping people get better, does the upfront cost even matter? In all fairness, we’d say the most expensive medicine is the one that doesn't actually work.

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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.