April 4, 2024 by Arsalan Shah, PharmD, MBA
Last year we wrote a couple of articles about business models and jobsemerging in the psychedelic ecosystem. Since this new industry is rapidly evolving, let’s revisit some of the opportunities that may interest people. This is by no means comprehensive and intended to serve as a bite size peek into the ecosystem.
Kudos to the folks at Bizdelics that put together the list of psychedelic ecosystems. It’s a pretty incredible list and very useful for people to get a good glimpse of the industry.
Milica Radovic Mandic, Founder of Bizdelics and Psilocybin San Francisco said to me “I created the list aiming to facilitate connections across the psychedelic ecosystem. Together with four collaborators, we initially gathered over 500 names. However, upon its publication, the list received significant contributions from the community, marking a pivotal moment when Bryce Montgomery, who worked 11 years at MAPS, generously shared his extensive personal directory encompassing over 2000 entries, making this list the biggest Psychedelic List out there! The Psychedelic Ecosystem List is more than just a directory; it’s a testament to the vibrant and diverse community driving the psychedelic renaissance”
We won’t cover everything in that list, but here is a snapshot of the categories.
Federally Approved Prescriptions
As we mentioned in our previous article, this will be a huge category for psychedelics related investments. These pharmaceutical companies are also bringing the most money in terms of investment dollars.
Lykos Therapeutics and Cybin Inc secured $250M of funding recently. I am not even mentioning small investments of a few million dollars here and there. It is believed to be a $12 Billion industry by 2035.
Institutional money is coming in too.
As you can see in the list above, it commands its own category as there are numerous VC funds dedicated to it. The big dogs like JP Morgan Chase are lurking around the corner too. “We’re actively looking and are in constant dialogue with several companies developing both psychedelic and non psychedelic [treatments for] mental health,” Gaurav Gupta, M.D., managing partner of the Life Sciences Private Capital team at J.P. Morgan Asset Management said in an interview recently.
There is a reason we see so much excitement because psychedelics are offering objective positive results in trials. So much so that the FDA has given breakthrough therapy designation to MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD now!
This field is going to blow up and if you’re interested then definitely keep an eye out.
Research Institutions
Another trend is that we will continue to see more and more research institutions dedicating significant energy and resources for research related to psychedelics. We lost decades worth of research due to our drug policies. It’s nice to see that well known institutions have been standing up centers of excellence for the past several years. My crystal ball tells me that there will be a lot more there. Even government agencies like the VA (Department of Veteran Affairs) are dedicating $20 million to research psychedelics.
As people looking for new or changed careers, this is definitely an area to explore.
Marketing and Business Support Services
The list mentioned above is going to be roughly 2500 people and companies.
You know what’s majority of them have in common? They all need to communicate their message to the masses.
Just like the psychedelic ecosystem, both the quality and quantity of the marketing jobs are in its early stages. This is rapidly growing though. There have been few agencies that have evolved to be the sole experts on psychedelics. In my opinion, there will be a time where we will see Super Bowl ads about companies related to psychedelics assisted mental health care. If you are a marketing and communication expert or aspire to be one, this is definitely one niche that is getting bigger and bigger.
I didn’t even mention dozens of companies that are selling functional mushrooms in food and beverages.
Lastly, a huge list of companies that will need its own article falls under business support services. For our current healthcare system to exist, there are hundreds of companies that provide behind the scenes services. These can be technology companies, insurance brokers, and “middle-men” type of services. In the future, I will write another article breaking that down.
In the meantime, what important sectors did I miss? Or what sector do you want us to explore in detail?
P.S. It’s nice to see our name in that list too!