TDR’s Top 5 Psychedelic Developments For The Week Of June 14
Welcome to TDR’s review of the Top 5 Psychedelic developments for the week of June 14. Aside from presenting a synopsis of events, we provide market commentary to summarize the week that was for publicly-listed companies. 5. Numinus Wellness Graduates…
Welcome to TDR’s review of the Top 5 Psychedelic developments for the week of June 14. Aside from presenting a synopsis of events, we provide market commentary to summarize the week that was for publicly-listed companies.
5. Numinus Wellness Graduates to Tier 1 on the TSX Venture Exchange
Numinus Wellness Inc. (CVE:NUMI) has received approval to graduate to Tier 1 Issuer status on the TSX Venture Exchange, effective June 18, 2021. By qualifying for up-listing to the TSXV’s top tier under the Life Sciences industry segment, Numinus will benefit from improved service standards, reduced compliance obligations and increased access to institutional investors.
This up-listing is another indication that Numinus has effectively advanced its healthcare strategy, met its business objectives and built a rapidly scalable growth platform to lead the emerging sector of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Going forward, we expect to achieve near-term catalysts across our business including clinic acquisitions, new intellectual property, MDMA and psilocybin compassionate access trials, in-clinic ketamine-assisted therapy and further up-listings in the US and Canada. (emphasis ours)
Payton Nyquvest, President, CEO and Chair, Numinus
The TSXV classifies listed issuers into different tiers based on standards including historical financial performance, stage of development and financial resources. Tier 1 is the TSXV’s premier tier and is reserved for the TSXV’s most advanced issuers with the most significant financial resources.
Creso Pharma Ltd. (OTCMKTS: COPHF) and Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE: TRIP) (OTCMKTS: TRUFF) have entered into a definitive scheme implementation deed to combine businesses and create The HighBrid Lab, a global psychedelics and cannabinoid company. The HighBrid Lab is expected to have an implied pro forma equity value of C$347 million based on the closing price of Creso Pharma shares and Red Light Holland on June 15th, 2021, with an implied premium to Red Light Holland Shareholders of 29.9% based on the 30-day VWAP of both companies.
The newly-formed HighBrid Lab will focus on several key growth areas, such as:
● Expanding market and brand leadership in recreational psilocybin, supported by education, telecounseling and technology as new markets open
● Applied science and innovation supporting long-term opportunities in psychedelics with both naturally occurring and pharmaceutical grade drug discovery
● Scaling recreational cannabis offering in North America by focusing on increasing market share in Canada and taking advantage of the Combined Company’s CSE listing to progress the introduction of products into the US, as well as leveraging industry expertise to execute its US cannabis acquisitions
__________
Solid Majority In The United Kingdom Support The Medicalization Of Psilocybin And Associated Policy Changes
__________
3. Mixed Week For Psychedelics Stocks, Though The Sector Outperforms Biotech For The 2nd Consecutive Week
The biggest psychedelic stocks were mixed this week on general declining volume. The Horizon Psychedelic Stock Index ETF (PSYK) outperformed biotech stocks this week, edging ↑0.47% higher versus modest declines in both the Nasdaq Junior Biotechnology Index (↓2.05%) and Nasdaq Biotechnology Ishares ETF (↓2.06%). Obviously, the bullish sentiment surrounding the atai Life Science IPO provided a major tailwind for the sector.
On Friday, the bullish tone in ATAI stock was set from the get-go. With the final IPO price set the day before at $15 per share—at the high end of its initial $13-15 range—atai’s first print was at $21. Despite a steep post-open selloff which saw price dip to a low of $16.50, the stock finished strong to close at $19.45.
The robust investor demand and price action was reminiscent of the COMPASS Pathways IPO last September. Back then, COMPASS raised $128 million by offering 7.5 million ADSs at $17/share—above the initial IPO range of $14 to $16. On IPO day, CMPS went on to open at $23.40/share on the way to rising 163% in price before year’s end. CMPS shares never dipped below $22.51 on its journey to new highs. While atai didn’t gain as sharply on opening day (29.66% vs. 70.58%), it was at a disadvantage being was the 3rd major exchange listed psychedelic company and competing against several more new issues which have come to market since COMPASS listed on September 18, 2020.
Nonetheless, investors should be very satisfied with Friday’s results. With a market cap of US$2.93 billion, atai decisively vaults into a leadership position by market cap. It was great to see investor enthusiasm reinvigorate in advance of the listing, which had been flagging for much of Q2. The question now is whether recent momentum can sustain itself or whether the sector follows the whims of the broader biotech market through the lower volume summer months.
Company
Ticker
Price ($)
Weekly Change (%)
WoW Volume Trend
Market Cap (s/o)
ATAI LIfe Sciences
ATAI
19.45
–
–
US$2.95B
Mind Medicine
MNMD
3.74
-4.59
↓
US$1.67B
Compass Pathways
CMPS
36.34
-8.41
↓
US$1.49B
Field Trip Health
FTRP
7.47
17.63
↓
US$428.1M
Seelos Therapeutics
SEEL
3.02
-10.11
US$307.5M
Cybin Inc.
CYBN
2.14
16.93
↑
C$317.0M
Numinus Wellness
NUMI
1.03
↓
C$208.1M
Small Pharma
DMT
0.60
20.00
C$190.1M
Revive Therapeutics
RVV
0.48
2.12
C$152.2M
Mydecine Innovations
MYCO
0.285
-6.55
↓
C67.8M
In the news…
Awakn Life Sciences has completed its reverse takeover transaction and that the net proceeds from its previously announced brokered private placement of 3,320,220 subscription receipts for aggregate gross proceeds of $8,300,550 have been released from escrow. The company has also received final approval to list its common shares on the Neo Exchange, which is expected to commence on June 23, 2021 under the stock symbol “AWKN”.
Braxia Scientificannounces that Dr. Josh Rosenblat, Braxia Scientific’s Chief Medical and Science Officer, has been awarded and received funding by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), of the Government of Canada, to support the first of its kind Ketamine clinical trial for Bipolar Depression. The collaboration with Toronto’s University Health Network will include 100 participants across two sites.
Cybin Inc. has selected social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder as the initial target indications for its proprietary psychedelic molecule CYB004. The COVID pandemic has greatly increased the potential size of these therapeutic markets, having increased 3-fold according to Dr. Alex Belser, Cybin’s Chief Clinical Officer.
Entheon Biomedicalhas entered into a definitive agreement to acquire personalized genetics company Lobo Genetics. Under the deal—structured as a three-cornered amalgamation—Lobo will merge with Subco, a newly incorporated and wholly-owned subsidiary of the company.
Field Trip Health has completed initial drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic studies for FT-104, its novel psychedelic compound in development. With synthesis and scale-up now complete, the company is gearing up to submit its applications to commence Phase 1 human trials.
Mind Cure Health has developed two proprietary ketamine-enhanced protocols for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy – one for treating pain and another for treating depression. MINDCURE will distribute these protocols to therapists through iSTRYM, its digital therapeutics platform, in time for iSTRYM’s clinical MVP launch in Q3 2021.
MindMedannounced the addition of Dr. Peter Bergethon to the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Bergethon is the Vice President and Head of Digital and Quantitative Medicine at Biogen Inc., where he leads the effort to transform clinical trials and humanize drug discovery by encouraging the transition of clinical trial measures from a qualitative to a quantitative discipline.
Mydecine Innovationsannounced the launch of its in-silico drug discovery program in conjunction with researchers at the University of Alberta. The expansion of its R&D efforts and AI/ML drug screening program will allow Mydecine’s research teams to more efficiently expand its knowledge of the pharmacological value of Psilocybe mushrooms in a therapeutic setting.
MYND Life Sciencesannounces a Letter of Intent with Eyam Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. The LOI outlines an Exclusive Licensing Agreement with respect to Eyam’s proprietary technologies for applications to Central Nervous System Vaccines. The agreement will allow MYND to access cutting edge technology with the development of vaccines that have the ability to prevent neurological disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder.
Novamind Inc. has made a strategic investment of US$1,000,000 in a stealth mode drug development company based in the United States. The strategic investment leverages Novamind’s expertise in patient recruitment and patient management for the Investee’s development of novel treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders.
PharmaTher Holdingshas filed a pre-Investigational New Drug (pre-IND) meeting request and briefing package with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to support the clinical development of KETABET and associated Phase 2 clinical study as a potential treatment for depression, and to discuss the product development plan for its patented hydrogel-forming microneedle patch delivery technology.
Revive Therapeutics has entered into an agreement with the University of Health Sciences Antigua to collaborate on utilizing Revive’s novel psychedelic-assisted therapies and pioneering the clinical research and development of psychedelics in Antigua and Barbuda.
Small Pharma was granted UK patent no. GB2585978 on Wednesday, the first patent in awhile to cover a novel composition of matter in the psychedelic field. The claim is expected to cover the drug substance (N,N-dimethyltryptamineor DMT) in the company’s preclinical program SPL028.
Wake Network has entered into an agreement with Santé Cannabis for consultation and clinical research services to support Wake clinical trials in Canada. Under this engagement, in addition to the clinical trials, Santé will also engage with physicians, therapists, and research investigators as partners in psychedelic medicine and research development.
2. California Senator Previews Next Steps For Psychedelics Bill
A California senator sponsoring a bill to legalize possession of psychedelics in the state says the proposal is a step toward eventually decriminalizing all drugs.
Sen. Scott Wiener (D) made the comments last week in a chat hosted by the Psychedelic and Entheogen Academic Council (PEAC), discussing next steps for his psychedelics legislation after it passed in the Senate earlier this month. He said advancing the measure in the Assembly will be “very challenging” due to a number of factors, but he sees progress in the legislature.
California Senator Previews Next Steps For Psychedelics Bill And Says It's A Step Toward Decriminalizing All Drugs: "This is the first time that this idea has ever been introduced in the legislature." https://t.co/Cu2BADV6D4
As a way to generate support, some psychedelic substances might not make the cut. The senator said one possible amendment that could be expected in the Assembly would be to remove ketamine from the list of psychedelics that would be included in the reform. Mescaline, a psychoactive compound derived from peyote and other cacti, is another controversial psychedelic.
If enacted into law, the bill would remove criminal penalties for possessing or sharing numerous psychedelics—including psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, ibogaine, LSD and MDMA—for adults 21 and older.
1. atai Life Sciences Announces Pricing of Upsized Initial Public Offering—Full Coverage
Atai Life Sciences B.V. (NASDAQ: ATAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company aiming to transform the treatment of mental health disorders, announced the pricing of its upsized initial public offering in the United States of 15,000,000 common shares at a price to the public of $15.00 per share. The final IPO pricing was at the upper end of its previously indicated range of $13-15 per share.
— Christian Angermayer (@C_Angermayer) June 18, 2021
The gross proceeds of the offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by atai, are expected to be $225.0 million. In addition, atai has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,250,000 common shares at the initial public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.
Watch Yield Curve For When Stocks Begin To Price Recession Risk
Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,
US large-cap indices are currently diverging from recessionary leading economic data. However, a decisive steepening in the yield curve leaves growth stocks and therefore the overall index facing lower prices.
Leading economic data has been signalling a recession for several months. Typically stocks closely follow the ratio between leading and coincident economic data.
As the chart below shows, equities have recently emphatically diverged from the ratio, indicating they are supremely indifferent to very high US recession risk.
What gives? Much of the recent outperformance of the S&P has been driven by a tiny number of tech stocks. The top five S&P stocks’ mean return this year is over 60% versus 0% for the average return of the remaining 498 stocks.
The belief that generative AI is imminently about to radically change the economy and that Nvidia especially is positioned to benefit from this has been behind much of this narrow leadership.
Regardless on your views whether this is overdone or not, it has re-established growth’s dominance over value. Energy had been spearheading the value trade up until around March, but since then tech –- the vessel for many of the largest growth stocks –- has been leading the S&P higher.
The yield curve’s behaviour will be key to watch for a reversion of this trend, and therefore a heightened risk of S&P 500 underperformance. Growth stocks tend to outperform value stocks when the curve flattens. This is because growth companies often have a relative advantage over typically smaller value firms by being able to borrow for longer terms. And vice-versa when the curve steepens, growth firms lose this relative advantage and tend to underperform.
The chart below shows the relationship, which was disrupted through the pandemic. Nonetheless, if it re-establishes itself then the curve beginning to durably re-steepen would be a sign growth stocks will start to underperform again, taking the index lower in the process.
Equivalently, a re-acceleration in US inflation (whose timing depends on China’s halting recovery) is more likely to put steepening pressure on the curve as the Fed has to balance economic growth more with inflation risks. Given the growth segment’s outperformance is an indication of the market’s intensely relaxed attitude to inflation, its resurgence would be a high risk for sending growth stocks lower.
COVID-19 lockdowns linked to less accurate recollection of event timing
Participants in a survey study made a relatively high number of errors when asked to recollect the timing of major events that took place in 2021, providing…
Participants in a survey study made a relatively high number of errors when asked to recollect the timing of major events that took place in 2021, providing new insights into how COVID-19 lockdowns impacted perception of time. Daria Pawlak and Arash Sahraie of the University of Aberdeen, UK, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 31, 2023.
Participants in a survey study made a relatively high number of errors when asked to recollect the timing of major events that took place in 2021, providing new insights into how COVID-19 lockdowns impacted perception of time. Daria Pawlak and Arash Sahraie of the University of Aberdeen, UK, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 31, 2023.
Remembering when past events occurred becomes more difficult as more time passes. In addition, people’s activities and emotions can influence their perception of the passage of time. The social isolation resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns significantly impacted people’s activities and emotions, and prior research has shown that the pandemic triggered distortions in people’s perception of time.
Inspired by that earlier research and clinical reports that patients have become less able to report accurate timelines of their medical conditions, Pawlak and Sahraie set out to deepen understanding of the pandemic’s impact on time perception.
In May 2022, the researchers conducted an online survey in which they asked 277 participants to give the year in which several notable recent events occurred, such as when Brexit was finalized or when Meghan Markle joined the British royal family. Participants also completed standard evaluations for factors related to mental health, including levels of boredom, depression, and resilience.
As expected, participants’ recollection of events that occurred further in the past was less accurate. However, their perception of the timing of events that occurred in 2021—one year prior to the survey—was just an inaccurate as for events that occurred three to four years earlier. In other words, many participants had difficulty recalling the timing of events coinciding with COVID-19 lockdowns.
Additionally, participants who made more errors in event timing were also more likely to show greater levels of depression, anxiety, and physical mental demands during the pandemic, but had less resilience. Boredom was not significantly associated with timeline accuracy.
These findings are similar to those previously reported for prison inmates. The authors suggest that accurate recollection of event timing requires “anchoring” life events, such as birthday celebrations and vacations, which were lacking during COVID-19 lockdowns.
The authors add: “Our paper reports on altered timescapes during the pandemic. In a landscape, if features are not clearly discernible, it is harder to place objects/yourself in relation to other features. Restrictions imposed during the pandemic have impoverished our timescape, affecting the perception of event timelines. We can recall that events happened, we just don’t remember when.
#####
In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278250
Citation: Pawlak DA, Sahraie A (2023) Lost time: Perception of events timeline affected by the COVID pandemic. PLoS ONE 18(5): e0278250. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278250
Author Countries: UK
Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.
Journal
PLoS ONE
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0278250
Method of Research
Survey
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Lost time: Perception of events timeline affected by the COVID pandemic
Article Publication Date
31-May-2023
COI Statement
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Hyro secures $20M for its AI-powered, healthcare-focused conversational platform
Israel Krush and Rom Cohen first met in an AI course at Cornell Tech, where they bonded over a shared desire to apply AI voice technologies to the healthcare…
Israel Krush and Rom Cohen first met in an AI course at Cornell Tech, where they bonded over a shared desire to apply AI voice technologies to the healthcare sector. Specifically, they sought to automate the routine messages and calls that often lead to administrative burnout, like calls about scheduling, prescription refills and searching through physician directories.
Several years after graduating, Krush and Cohen productized their ideas with Hyro, which uses AI to facilitate text and voice conversations across the web, call centers and apps between healthcare organizations and their clients. Hyro today announced that it raised $20 million in a Series B round led by Liberty Mutual, Macquarie Capital and Black Opal, bringing the startup’s total raised to $35 million.
Krush says that the new cash will be put toward expanding Hyro’s go-to-market teams and R&D.
“When we searched for a domain that would benefit from transforming these technologies most, we discovered and validated that healthcare, with staffing shortages and antiquated processes, had the greatest need and pain points, and have continued to focus on this particular vertical,” Krush told TechCrunch in an email interview.
To Krush’s point, the healthcare industry faces a major staffing shortfall, exacerbated by the logistical complications that arose during the pandemic. In a recent interview with Keona Health, Halee Fischer-Wright, CEO of Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), said that MGMA’s heard that 88% of medical practices have had difficulties recruiting front-of-office staff over the last year. By another estimates, the healthcare field has lost 20% of its workforce.
Hyro doesn’t attempt to replace staffers. But it does inject automation into the equation. The platform is essentially a drop-in replacement for traditional IVR systems, handling calls and texts automatically using conversational AI.
Hyro can answer common questions and handle tasks like booking or rescheduling an appointment, providing engagement and conversion metrics on the backend as it does so.
Plenty of platforms do — or at least claim to. See RedRoute, a voice-based conversational AI startup that delivers an “Alexa-like” customer service experience over the phone. Elsewhere, there’s Omilia, which provides a conversational solution that works on all platforms (e.g. phone, web chat, social networks, SMS and more) and integrates with existing customer support systems.
But Krush claims that Hyro is differentiated. For one, he says, it offers an AI-powered search feature that scrapes up-to-date information from a customer’s website — ostensibly preventing wrong answers to questions (a notorious problem with text-generating AI). Hyro also boasts “smart routing,” which enables it to “intelligently” decide whether to complete a task automatically, send a link to self-serve via SMS or route a request to the right department.
A bot created using Hyro’s development tools. Image Credits: Hyro
“Our AI assistants have been used by tens of millions of patients, automating conversations on various channels,” Krush said. “Hyro creates a feedback loop by identifying missing knowledge gaps, basically mimicking the operations of a call center agent. It also shows within a conversation exactly how the AI assistant deduced the correct response to a patient or customer query, meaning that if incorrect answers were given, an enterprise can understand exactly which piece of content or dataset is labeled incorrectly and fix accordingly.”
Of course, no technology’s perfect, and Hyro’s likely isn’t an exception to the rule. But the startup’s sales pitch was enough to win over dozens of healthcare networks, providers and hospitals as clients, including Weill Cornell Medicine. Annual recurring revenue has doubled since Hyro went to market in 2019, Krush claims.
Hyro’s future plans entail expanding to industries adjacent to healthcare, including real estate and the public sector, as well as rounding out the platform with more customization options, business optimization recommendations and “variety” in the AI skills that Hyro supports.
“The pandemic expedited digital transformation for healthcare and made the problems we’re solving very clear and obvious (e.g. the spike in calls surrounding information, access to testing, etc.),” Krush said. “We were one of the first to offer a COVID-19 virtual assistant that deployed in under 48 hours based on trusted information from the health system and trusted resources such as the CDC and World Health Organization …. Hyro is well funded, with good growth and momentum, and we’ve always managed a responsible budget, so we’re actually looking to expand and gather more market share while competitors are slowing down.”
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