Serial entrepreneur Jody Aufrichtig has built 19 businesses in cannabis, private equity, travel and tourism, and other industries. Remarkably, Aufrichtig has never lost money in the businesses he has curated. Still, the impact investor is clear about what really drives him forward.
“I am driven by healing and helping people,” Psyence Group Inc (CSE:PSYG) co-founder and CEO Aufrichtig, told Proactive. “I am passionate about Psyence because I believe that through it, we can make a significant impact on mental health and the well-being of millions of people.”
Psyence is a life science biotechnology company pioneering the use of natural psilocybin to heal psychological trauma and disorders that can result in anxiety, depression, stress, and grief, especially in palliative care.
Researchers around the world are increasingly interested in the magic inside psychedelic mushrooms. It is believed that the psychoactive components of the mushroom — psilocybin — is effective in the treatment of motor neuron damage, as well as repairing the synaptic pathways in the brain. Psyence believes the potential of that could be far-reaching.
The Canadian listed company has a diversified business and global footprint with operations in many legal jurisdictions. It runs one of the first federally licensed commercial psilocybin cultivation and production facilities in the world in Southern Africa. Having its own cultivation facility gives Psyence a distinct advantage: it ensures supply and maintains the consistency of the product that will be used in the firm’s clinical trials.
Proactive sat down with CEO Aufrichtig, a trained chartered accountant, to learn more about the Psyence Group’s clear path to revenue and value creation.
Proactive: Why is the Psyence Group a compelling story?
Jody Aufrichtig: The Psyence Group is a pioneer in the use of natural psilocybin for the long-term treatment of trauma and its mental health consequences, especially in the context of palliative care.
We have four clear paths to revenue and value creation, namely Production, Therapeutics, Experience and Function.
Let me start by outlining Production; we are federally-licensed to cultivate and export psilocybin mushrooms and our state-of-the-art facility based in Southern Africa (built to GMP standards) is already operational and on track to receive BSI certification.
Our Therapeutics arm, led by a highly regarded, global medical and drug development team, concentrates on proprietary natural psilocybin drug development, research and treatment protocols. We are on track with our pharma drug development programme. These formulations will be used in observational studies that will go on to inform our clinical trials, which will be focused on palliative care.
Through Psyence Experience, we are creating psilocybin-containing nutraceutical products for those seeking what the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has termed ‘breakthrough solutions to mental wellness.’
Psyence Function is focused on the development of over-the-counter nutraceutical products and we have already launched our first functional wellness mushroom brand in collaboration with the Goodleaf company, GoodMind.
Psyence has medical formulations and therapies to treat mental health disorders. Walk us through your natural psilocybin-based drug development program and what is your primary focus?
We are developing therapeutic, sub-hallucinogenic dosing and treatment protocols to help heal psychological trauma and the ICD-11 and DSM-5 diagnosable disorders that can result, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), grief and bereavement, especially in the context of palliative care.
We are currently finalising agreements with the necessary partners in Jamaica to develop and register our formulations. These will be used in observational studies in Jamaica that will in turn inform our planned clinical trials, which will be focused on palliative care. We are also focused on fostering our partnerships and networks in the UK and Canada in order to advance drug development and research opportunities in these markets.
As a company pioneering the use of natural psilocybin is it a big advantage to have your own psilocybin cultivation facility?
Psilocybin-yielding mushrooms and truffles are cultivated, harvested and packaged at our federally licensed facility in Southern Africa, which has been designed and constructed to GMP Standards and will be certified by the British Standards Institute. Having our own facility means that we are able to ensure supply, and maintain consistency of the product that will ultimately be used in our clinical trials.
Through our facility we are also able to meet the growing need for high-quality natural psilocybin products required by clinicians, research centres and universities undertaking research and clinical trials in the use of natural psilocybin for the treatment of a range of mental health disorders and other medical conditions.
Is Psyence’s functional mushroom brand, Goodmind and its nutraceutical product portfolio a latent revenue-generating window?
While we have confidence that psilocybin legalisation will continue to progress globally, we realise the importance of having other revenue streams that we can activate immediately. With the skills and resources we have at Psyence we are well-positioned to launch a leading nutraceutical product portfolio. Furthermore, as psilocybin is legal in more jurisdictions, we can then easily extend our existing product range, which will already have established routes to market and brand recognition, to include psilocybin-containing products.
We will see our first product, GoodMind, on shelf in the next few months, with three more products currently under development to be launched later this year.
We’ve talked about Psyence Therapeutics, then the firm’s commercial psilocybin production, and disruptive functional brands. Please touch on the group’s fourth business pillar — Psyence Experience.
Through Psyence Experience we are responding to the need for safe and effective psilocybin-containing nutraceutical products for use in regulatory compliant jurisdictions including Jamaica, the Bahamas and Brazil. We are also developing a truffle product for sale in the Netherlands.
Every single psychiatric drug on the market is based on research that is at least 50 years old. Can medicinal mushroom compounds become a popular alternative to traditional drugs and where do you see the industry in five years?
There is no doubt that mental health is one of the biggest challenges of our time; this has been further exacerbated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. Unfortunately, traditional medicines have been left wanting both in terms of their effectiveness and as a result of their negative side-effects, and the world is desperate for alternatives.
After a long period of prohibition that stymied promising research on the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin, the FDA has granted psilocybin “breakthrough” status for the treatment of mental disorders. I am confident that with some of the world’s greatest medical minds and institutions leading research in this area, we will make massive strides in the next five years. I expect to see significant progress on both the clinical trials and regulatory fronts, and in terms of the general public’s understanding and acceptance of the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin and other psychedelics.
You are a serial entrepreneur who has built 19 different businesses. You are also an impact investor so why is the work that you are doing at Psyence so important for you?
I am passionate about Psyence because I believe that through it we can make a significant impact on mental health and well-being for millions of people. We can no longer ignore the significant evidence that natural plant-based medicines are making to improve the quality of life, and I am excited to be leading an excellent team that intends to make great strides in this space.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive