Can Christian Angermeyer build a psychedelic monopoly?

Plus Mormons on drugs; Wagner gives you a bad trip; Santo Daime sex scandal; RFK’s fondness for psychedelics; and some great new papers on psychedelic safety

Welcome to Tuesday Brunch, first bit is free, the rest is behind a paywall.

I’ve recently noticed Christian Angermeyer making ebullient claims that his psychedelic investments - AtaiBeckley and Compass Pathways - will emerge as the winner-takes-all monopoly in psychedelic medicine. Last week he announced that AtaiBeckley has been granted a patent for a type of MDMA, adding:

The big picture: We founded AtaiBeckley in 2017. From the beginning, our thesis was clear: psychedelics are medical treatments, and medical treatments require FDA approval. That process is expensive and only viable with proper intellectual property (IP) and patent protection. Because AtaiBeckley was first - and because the team was disciplined - we now hold a uniquely strong position. You could say: atai owns the sector. While there are several companies - both private and public - that are still running trials and presenting themselves as commercially viable, the reality is: if they ever reach the point of commercialization, they’ll run straight into our patents. We’ve built a strong, defensible IP moat - and it will matter more than ever as the sector matures.

Was AtaiBeckley ‘first’? It was founded in 2018, and Compass in 2017, while Usona was founded in 2014, MAPS PBC in 2014 and MAPS in 1986. But never mind that. Is Angermeyer being realistic here? Could AtaiBeckley and Compass emerge as the winner-takes-all monopoly? I asked a couple of people what they thought - Carey Turnbull, investor, philanthropist and founder of B.More Inc, says:

There are many dozens of psychedelics - both naturally occurring molecules and not naturally occurring molecules. I assume he’s talking about one or two of those dozens. As to their IP protection on the two or three out of the hundreds, probably, of potential molecules, that would be very fact based. Think how many benzos are there and they all compete with each other: Valium, Xanax, Ativan, etc. I’m not sure exactly what he said but as reported it sounds like an exaggeration. But over and above that his enthusiasm can only be appreciated.

Meanwhile, Josh Hardman of Psychedelic Alpha responded:

Christian is known for bringing the hype in his social media posts, and any sensible investor should be taking those with more than one grain of salt. He has bragged, for several years now, that other psychedelic companies will “hit the patents of Compass and Atai”. That quote comes from a 2021 email he sent to investors that was leaked to journalist Shayla Love.

Despite the bragging, the reality of the matter is that much of the psychedelic IP landscape is unclear and contested, as we regularly cover at Psychedelic Alpha. Turning to the post at hand, it is conceivable that there could be “several companies” that are developing psychedelics that will, one day, realise they cannot work around AtaiBeckley’s patents. But whether that is the majority of AtaiBeckley’s competitors - or, all of them, as “atai owns the sector” might be interpreted to suggest - is much less clear. In sum: I think that Christian’s headline claim, that “atai owns the sector”, is silly.

As Compass nears FDA approval in the next 12 months or so, and market interest grows in short-acting psychedelics like 5-meo-DMT (which AtaiBeckley is developing), Angermeyer is likely to be an increasingly prominent, and perhaps controversial, figure in psychedelic-land. Here’s a great recent interview by SuedDeutch Zeitung, which pulled no punches - and to his credit Angermeyer responds well to the aggressive questioning.

In other news:

• You may have seen the headlines that RFK Junior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has smoked DMT according to his alleged lover, journalist Olivia Nuzzi. She makes the claim in her tell-all memoir, American Canto (wow pretentious title!). But what does the book actually say?

After the pay-wall: RFK’s fondness for psychedelics; Mormons on drugs; psychedelics open people up to alternative sexualities and gender identities; Wagner gives you a bad trip; Santo Daime sex scandal; and SIX great new papers on psychedelic safety