Billionaires, like Peter Thiel are investing in psychedelic stocks.
In fact, he just backed ATAI Life Sciences in a $125 million funding round. “ATAI’s great virtue is to take mental illness as seriously as we should have been taking all illness all along,” Thiel, who co-founded Palantir and PayPal, said as quoted by CNBC. “The company’s most valuable asset is its sense of urgency.” At the moment, there’s growing interest in psychedelics after clinical studies suggested such drugs could help treat a range of mental illnesses. “Almost a billion people suffer from mental health problems worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Of the 322 million people globally that have depression, roughly a third are treatment-resistant,” added CNBC.
After all, “Traditional medicines that are treating things like depression, addiction, and anxiety really are seeking to numb and mask the issues that surround these illnesses. So, things like Xanax, while they might make you feel better, they can also be highly addictive and are not dealing with the underlying problem,” MindMed’s co-founder and co-CEO JR Rahn told Yahoo Finance. In addition, clinical studies by New York University and Johns Hopkins are pointing to positive mental health results.