Icebreakers with…MindMed CEO Rob Barrow – Morning Brew

Psychedelic drugs have made their way from the Woodstocks and Playas of the world to health clinics, where LSD, MDMA, psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms), and more are being used to treat everything from anxiety to opioid addiction. As these drugs become destigmatized, regulators are increasingly approving the research and use of them by companies like MindMed, a three-year-old psychedelic medicine company that went public last spring.

To learn more about the fledgling psychedelics industry, we spoke with MindMeds CEO Rob Barrow.

How would you explain what MindMed does to someone unfamiliar with it?

What MindMed is ultimately building is a biopharmaceutical company that's going to be a powerhouse in treating brain health disorders. Our starting point is some classic psychedelics: the LSDs and psilocybins of the world. The regulatory environment is favorable at this point, and the resurgence of research has created an environment where we can accelerate the development of these programs.

But beyond that, we have broader ambitions of improving mental health and addiction outcomes for patients. That ranges from the classic psychedelics to novel uses of those molecules and to other molecules that are structurally related but aren't psychedelic in and of themselves.

How is taking psychedelic drugs recreationally different from administering them in a medical setting?

If it were the case that just by simply taking a psychedelic drug one time, you never had depression, you would have a large part of the population whos taken LSD or psilocybin at some point in their lives who would never have depression or anxiety risk. We don't think that's the case.

We try to be a bit realistic in terms of the opportunity and potential here. There is enormous potential, but this isn't magic, right? These are drugs that get into your brain and engage an important system, and they have scientifically and medically interesting perceptual effects and compelling signs of clinical efficacy. But it's important to do that in a controlled environment, in a medical setting, and have them delivered in a therapeutic context in order to realize their therapeutic potential.

Whats the biggest misconception that you hear about MindMed?

One of the things we really try to emphasize is that we are a pharmaceutical company developing treatments for brain health disorders. So when conversations come up about parallels to the cannabis industry and parallels to recreational use of products, that has nothing to do with what we are pursuing as a mission. We always want to make it very clear about what we're trying to achieve and how we're going about that, which is to bring new drugs to the market through regulated processes.

Whats next for you in the short term?

In the very near term, we're launching several clinical trials that are going to be high impact for us. These include our 18-MC molecule in treating opioid withdrawal, LSD for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder, and then as we progress through the year, launching a clinical research program for MDMA and autism spectrum disorder.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Icebreakers with...MindMed CEO Rob Barrow - Morning Brew