Tag: psychedelics

Billionaires Are Buying Into Psychedelic Companies

Putting aside my skepticism of SpaceX for a moment, there is something worth paying attention to in the latest report about the people who made fortunes backing the company: they are now putting serious money into psychedelics.

And while I can’t necessarily get behind backing Elon Musk’s idea of elephants performing Les Miserables on the moon, or whatever other “lofty” goals are in the SpaceX S-1, I can get behind these follow up investment ideas.

Back in January when absolutely no one was talking about the sector, I officially hung my balls out there and name it my “Best Idea” sector for 2026. I was writing about these stocks years ago ago, first in January 2025, calling the psychedelic names “stocks to watch” for the year. Then, in July 2025, urging patience in these positions.

In April, after the administration’s executive order supporting psychedelic research, I reiterated my bullish stance and argued that we were moving from the phase where these therapies were ignored into the phase where institutions would be forced to engage with them seriously. That transition appears to be underway.

So far, the group has wildly outperformed the market, with the AdvisorShares Psychedelic ETF (PSIL) beating the S&P 500 by about +32% this year. Other individual companies I pointed out at the beginning of this year are beating the market by about +79% and +171%.

That doesn’t mean every name is going to work, or that the easy money hasn’t already been made in some of them. But the broader thesis continues to get validation, and the latest evidence suggests that capital is still finding its way into the space.

The biggest validation came in July, when Eli Lilly agreed to acquire AtaiBeckley for approximately $2.8 billion upfront, with another $1 billion contingent on development and regulatory milestones.

That is not a small biotech taking a flyer on an experimental treatment. That is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world committing billions of dollars to a psychedelic-derived drug pipeline. Lilly’s interest is centered on BPL-003, a treatment being developed for treatment-resistant depression.

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20,000 people in Oregon have now received legal psilocybin therapy, and the outcomes are overwhelmingly positive

In 2020, Oregon became the first US state to approve the use of psilocybin therapy, and new data suggests that the psychedelic drug is being used to great effect at state-regulated clinics.

Among those accessing legal psilocybin therapy in Oregon, the majority report significant improvements in mental health, wellbeing, and life satisfaction in the three months after treatment, with very few patients experiencing adverse events.

Since 2023, more than 20,000 people have legally accessed psilocybin therapy in Oregon, with 26 treatment centers currently holding licenses to administer the drug. Using data from 24 of these clinics, researchers analyzed the experiences and outcomes of 346 patients, all of whom underwent treatment between November 2024 and March 2026.

“Most participants were highly satisfied with their psilocybin experience, would recommend their licensed service center and facilitator, felt the experience was beneficial, and that their goals for seeking services had been met,” write the study authors.

One month after taking the drug, 92.2 percent of individuals stated that they had benefited from their treatment, with 58.6 percent ranking the experience among the 10 most meaningful events of their life.

Prior to treatment, 63 percent of participants said they were satisfied with their lives, yet this figure rose to 82.3 percent three months after taking psilocybin. On average, scores on a standard test that measures wellbeing rose from 22.1 at baseline to 25.3 at the three-month follow-up.

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Major VA study to examine effectiveness of psilocybin on depression, PTSD

The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching research to determine whether psilocybin — the psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms” — can be used safely and effectively to address veterans’ treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The trial, known as the Psilocybin Intervention for Veterans Overcoming Treatment-Resistant Depression,” or PIVOT, study aims to include at least 240 veterans, all of whom have difficult-to-treat major depressive disorder and some who also have PTSD.

The study will take place at five VA medical centers through June 2031 and will assess patients’ levels of depression before and after treatment, side effects and overall response among participants.

“Far too many veterans are living with mental health conditions that don’t respond to available treatments,” VA Secretary Doug Collinssaid in a statement. “Under President [Donald] Trump, VA is pursuing all avenues to evaluate new treatments and offer meaningful relief for those who have worn the uniform. This clinical trial reflects another step toward this goal.”

Last month, researchers with Ohio State University’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education published the findings of a small, 12-person study on the safety of using psilocybin to treat severe PTSD in veterans.

After receiving eight hours of psychotherapy and two doses of synthetic psilocybin and integrative therapy, nine participants, or 75%, no longer met the clinical criteria for having PTSD.

According to the research, published July 30 in Communications Medicine, participants showed no serious adverse effects, including suicidal ideation or behavior. Non-serious side effects included headache, anxiety and dizziness.

“For a population with severe treatment-resistant PTSD, these results are striking,” said Stacey Armstrong, associate director and senior researcher at the center.

The PIVOT study will involve veterans with major depressive disorder who have not responded to current treatments, including those with or without a diagnosis of PTSD. In the double-blind, randomized trial, veterans will receive one dose of psilocybin or a placebo, along with therapeutic support. They will receive a second dose one month later, also with support, and will be evaluated two to four weeks following each session.

They also will receive follow-up six months after their participation.

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Pharma Looks to Cash in on Psychedelics as Patients Seek Alternatives to Psychotropic Drugs for Depression

Eli Lilly’s multibillion-dollar acquisition of AtaiBeckley marks the largest pharmaceutical investment yet in psychedelic medicine, signaling a new phase for an industry once relegated to the margins of scientific research.

The deal, valued at approximately $2.8 billion upfront with up to $1 billion in additional milestone payments, gives Lilly control of AtaiBeckley’s experimental psychedelic therapies, including BPL-003, a fast-acting nasal spray containing N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) being studied for treatment-resistant depression.

AtaiBeckley announced in October 2025 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted BPL-003 Breakthrough Therapy designation, a status intended to accelerate development of treatments for serious conditions when early evidence suggests substantial improvement over existing options.

“Millions of people are still searching for relief and desperately need a therapy that works,” said Dr. Carole Ho, president of Lilly Neuroscience. Advancing AtaiBeckley’s therapies, she said, gives Lilly “a real chance to change that.”

The company’s purchase comes as pharmaceutical companies increasingly move into a field that has attracted growing scientific interest but remains controversial because of questions surrounding commercialization, access, intellectual property — and whether corporate development will preserve the therapeutic models that shaped psychedelic research.

A turning point for psychedelic medicine

The Lilly-AtaiBeckley acquisition follows another major pharmaceutical investment in the sector. In 2025, AbbVie agreed to acquire Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals’ experimental depression treatment Bretisilocin (GM-2505) in a deal worth up to $1.2 billion.

Bretisilocin targets the brain’s 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, the same receptor involved in the effects of classic psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD.

Together, the deals suggest that major drugmakers increasingly view psychedelic compounds as a potential new category of mental health treatments.

Rayyan Zafar, Ph.D., a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and member of the Centre for Psychedelic Research and Neuropsychopharmacology group, said the Lilly acquisition could help move psychedelics closer to popular medical use by making them “de-risked” for mental health utilization.

Pharmaceutical investment could extend past drug development by encouraging dialogue about insurance coverage and healthcare infrastructure needed to deliver new treatments, Zafar said.

“Beyond psychedelic clinical trials, it could also help stimulate broader discussion around reimbursement pathways and stimulate other public healthcare systems to begin preparing for rollout,” he added.

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The Woman Who Came Back: What One Dose of Psilocybin Revealed About the Self We Thought Alzheimer’s Had Erased

In 1971, psilocybin was declared to have “no accepted medical use.” In 2026, it appeared to reach into the ruins of an advanced Alzheimer’s brain and switch a human being back on.

Not permanently. Not by reversing the disease. But for days and weeks—long enough for her family to have her back, long enough to force a question that mainstream neurology has spent decades trying not to ask.

I’ve reported before on psilocybin as a longevity molecule—the Emory findings showing psilocin extending human cellular lifespan by up to 57%, aged mice surviving 60% better, telomeres preserved, neuroplasticity switched on. In that piece I listed Alzheimer’s among the “neurological frontiers” where this ancient fungal ally was beginning to be tested. I did not expect the frontier to move this fast.

The paper is titled, in the careful language of clinical medicine, “Transient multidomain functional improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin-containing mushroom administration.” Behind that title is a woman.

She was an octogenarian Japanese-American woman living under continuous family and caregiver supervision. Her Alzheimer’s had been progressing for roughly ten years. For the last five, her speech had collapsed into monosyllables. She was chronically incontinent. She could not dress herself, could not walk unaided, struggled to swallow, and had lost most of her capacity for spontaneous interaction. Her affect was flat. By every conventional measure, she was in the late, “irreversible” stage of the disease—the stage where medicine offers comfort and little else.

Under supervision, she was given a single oral dose of 5 grams of psilocybin-containing mushrooms (the “Enigma” strain)—a deliberately high dose, well above what modern psychiatric trials typically use.

The acute phase was not gentle, and I want to be honest about that up front. She showed signs of autonomic overdrive: clinically suspected hyperthermia, profuse sweating, and a long, deep, sleep-like state. This is not a small detail, and I’ll come back to why it matters enormously.

Then, approximately nineteen hours later, at 3:30 in the morning, she woke up and began to talk. Not in fragments. She spoke about her own life—autobiographical, spontaneous, coherent—for something on the order of four hours.

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Advanced Alzheimer’s successfully treated with psilocybin, a recent case study says

A newly published case report in Frontiers in Neuroscience describes a remarkable and unexpected clinical response in an 80-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s disease following a single high-dose psilocybin intervention.

The patient had lived with Alzheimer’s disease for approximately 10 years and experienced severe functional decline over the preceding five years. According to the report, she had become largely monosyllabic, demonstrated profound cognitive impairment, chronic urinary incontinence, impaired mobility, dysphagia, executive dysfunction and severe reduction in spontaneous communication and emotional engagement.

After receiving a single 5g oral dose of psilocybin-containing mushrooms (Enigma strain), the patient reportedly experienced rapid and sustained functional improvement across multiple domains.

During the acute phase, the patient entered a prolonged deep sleep-like state accompanied by profuse sweating and clinically suspected hyperthermia.

Then, approximately 19 hours later, something unexpected occurred.

The patient spontaneously awakened and began speaking for hours, engaging in autobiographical conversation and recalling memories that had not been expressed in years.

Over the following days, her family reported meaningful improvements in:

  • Speech and communication.
  • Memory and contextual recognition.
  • Walking and mobility.
  • Emotional connection and social engagement.
  • Bladder control, after years of chronic urinary incontinence.

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A Single Dose Of Psilocybin Can Lead To ‘Rapid’ And ‘Long-Lasting’ Improvements In Depression, Study Indicates

A single dose of psilocybin, coupled with therapy sessions, significantly improved symptoms of depression within days and lasting for a period of months, according to a first-of-its-kind study out of Sweden that was published by the American Medical Association.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Brain Stimulation Clinic in Stockholm conducted the phase 2 randomized clinical trial, which involved 35 participants with moderate-t0-severe depression who received either a 25 milligram dose of psilocybin or a placebo of niacin.

For the study, published in JAMA Psychiatry last week, patients also underwent five psychotherapy sessions to supplement the psychedelic or placebo experience.

The psilocybin cohort, on average, showed clinically observable improvement in their symptoms compared to the placebo group at day 8.

“This finding implies that psilocybin can be an option to standard treatments when rapid symptom relief is important,” the paper says.

By the sixth week of the trial, 53 percent of the psilocybin cohort were considered to be in remission for depression, while just 6 percent of the placebo group said the same by that point.

However, researchers found that the overall effect seemed to subside after a year.

”Our results suggest that psilocybin can provide rapid, clinically meaningful improvement in depression and may serve as an alternative to standard treatment when fast symptom reduction is important,” lead study author Hampus Yngwe said in a press release.

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Your Brain Restricts Full Access to Reality. But Scientists Found a Way to Turn Off the Filter.

In 1956, British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond coined the word “psychedelic” from Greek roots meaning “mind-manifesting” or “soul-revealing.” The term proved fitting. Users report that seconds stretch into eternity, sounds turn into color, and you very self begins dissolving. And now, after decades in scientific exile, those same once-ostracized compounds are undergoing a dramatic scientific renaissance. Researchers are investigating them not only for depression, trauma, and addiction, but also as a potential window into one of neuroscience’s deepest mysteries: how the brain constructs reality itself. And a small, egg-shaped structure buried deep in the center of the brain, the thalamus, may play an important role in that process.

Scientists once viewed the thalamus largely as a relay station: a kind of biological switchboard routing sensory information to the cortex, the brain’s outer layer responsible for higher thought, perception, and conscious awareness. But newer theories suggest something far stranger. Increasingly, neuroscientists suspect reality may partly reflect the brain’s constantly updated “best guess” about the world—built from memory, expectation, sensory input, and context, as Michelle J. Redinbaugh, PhD, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, puts it.

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TBI survivors turn to psychedelics for symptom relief

A new study from the University of Victoria (UVic) has identified a segment of traumatic brain injury survivors who are using psychedelics to self-medicate for cognitive, mood and somatic symptoms such as headaches. In a first-of-its-kind study, clinical psychology researchers analyzed more than 6,100 responses collected from the global psychedelic survey. Researchers found that nearly 1,200 respondents reported using psychedelics to treat or manage a physical health condition.

Of these, some 208 participants, or 3.4% of the total sample, reported using psychedelics to manage brain injury-related symptoms.

The paper, Psychedelics for the management of symptoms of traumatic brain injury: Findings from the global psychedelic survey, was published in Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, co-authored by UVic clinical psychology professors Jill Robinson and Mauricio Garcia-Barrera.

Some 60 million people worldwide experience traumatic brain injuries (TBI) every year. Garcia-Barrera says there isn’t a one-size-fits-all treatment for TBI survivors, and he says some are looking for alternative support, including from psychedelics.

“Although research into using psychedelics to manage TBI symptoms remains quite limited, the field is gaining momentum as awareness grows around how widespread brain injury is globally and its impact on the quality of life of those who experience a TBI,” Garcia-Barrera says.

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Trump’s Embrace of Psychedelic Therapy Leaves Most Users on the Wrong Side of the Law

On Saturday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at “accelerating medical treatments for serious mental illness” by facilitating regulatory approval of ibogaine and other psychedelics that have shown promise as psychotherapeutic catalysts. Although the case for doing that is compelling, the medical model embraced by the president excludes most psychedelic use, which will remain illegal even if the “historic reforms” that Trump announced work as planned.

Trump takes it for granted that Americans should be allowed to use psychedelics only for reasons that the government recognizes as legitimate. Otherwise, they are criminals rather than patients, subject to arrest, prosecution, and potentially severe penalties for daring to assert sovereignty over their own bodies and minds.

The injustice of that policy is readily apparent when people use psychedelics in ways that manifestly improve their lives. Many combat veterans, for example, have found that ibogaine, which is derived from the root of an African shrub, provides dramatic relief from the constellation of problems known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“It absolutely changed my life for the better,” former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, whose Afghanistan memoir inspired the 2013 movie Lone Survivor, remarked as Trump signed his executive order. “I was reborn,” says Luttrell’s twin brother, Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R–Texas), also a former Navy SEAL. “It is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.”

Because ibogaine is banned in the United States, the Luttrell brothers had those transformational experiences at a clinic in Mexico. So did the 30 subjects of a recent Nature Mental Health study, which found that ibogaine, combined with magnesium as a safeguard against the drug’s cardiac side effects, “safely and effectively reduces PTSD, anxiety and depression and improves functioning in veterans” with traumatic brain injuries.

Research on ibogaine, which also is reputed to be remarkably useful for people struggling with drug addiction, is relatively limited so far. But the evidence supporting the use of MDMA (for PTSD) and psilocybin (for depression), both of which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated as “breakthrough” therapies, is strong enough that they may soon be approved as prescription medications.

If that happens, some people who could benefit from these drugs will be able to use them legally, provided they can obtain a diagnosis and a prescription. But where does that leave all the psychedelic users who can’t meet those requirements?

In a 2023 survey of psilocybin users, the RAND Corporation found that the most common motivations included “fun” (59 percent), “improved mental health” (49 percent), “personal development” (45 percent), “curiosity” (43 percent), and “spiritual growth” (41 percent). Although very few of those people would qualify for the medical exception that Trump advocates, that does not mean their reasons for using psilocybin should be dismissed as frivolous, let alone that they should be treated as criminals.

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