Focal Points Brom Rector and Focalpoint Partners

Will MDMA and psychedelic therapy be affordable?

There are lots of questions about the economic and financial future of psychedelic therapies. How much will they cost? Will insurance cover them? And more fundamentally, how does one even begin to quantify the value of a psychedelic experience?

Today’s guest, Elliot Marseille, PhD is here to explore all these questions and more.

Dr. Marseille is a leading expert on the economics of the emerging psychedelic-assisted therapies. He is the founding Director of the UC Berkeley's Global Initiative for Psychedelic Science Economics (GIPSE), a network of health economists and health services researchers dedicated to realizing the potential of psychedelic therapies for high-priority mental health conditions. Through the application of policy-relevant economic analyses, GIPSE seeks to enhance the efficiency of service delivery, and increase access to these promising therapies.

Follow Dr. Marseille's work: https://cghdde.berkeley.edu/projects/global-initiative-psychedelic-science-economics-gipse

Can Kanna, a plant medicine from South Africa treat premature ejaculation? John Boghossian and Dr Ryan Protzko from Kanna Health are here to educate us.



https://www.kanna.health/

Can brain implants treat your depression? Ok, technically this would be a skull implant, not a brain implant - but still!



Jacob Robinson from Motif Neurotech discusses the future of minimally invasive electronic medicine from mental health and beyond.



This is a crossover episode from the Business Trip podcast.

Today’s guest is Samantha Tabone.  Sam is a Partner at Focalpoint where she leads in-depth technical and scientific due diligence on Empath’s psychedelic biotech investments.  Sam is here to help break down the due diligence process Empath uses when evaluating potential investments in psychedelic biotech companies.  Empath's Due Diligence process is broken down into 4 pillars:  Team, Intellectual Property, Scientific Foundations and Operations / Strategy.  



Prior to Focalpoint, Sam served as the VP of R&D for PurMinds, a neuromedicine startup developing novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases.  As an independent consultant she’s led projects for leading psychedelic companies including Beckley Psytech, advised family offices on Life Science investment strategies, and worked as a temporary strategic director at several biotech startups.  Sam has been fascinated with neuroscience and psychedelics (especially DMT) since she was in her teens.  She’s most excited about funding psychedelic startups working towards solutions for complex neurological disorders.  She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Toronto and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pharmaceutical Sciences Master’s program.  

Zach Haigney is the author of The Trip Report, a newsIetter that covers the emerging psychedelic science, medicine, and policy landscape.  In this conversation, Zach and Brom discuss emerging trends, questions and hot topics in the psychedelics industry including:  


The lines of tension between Drug Development and Drug Policy
Directive vs Non-Directive Psychedelic Therapy 
How Psychedelics are inverting the traditional drug development model 
What business models will emerge in psychedelics? 
Are fears about VC investment in psychedelics overstated?  
How psychedelics can be thought of as a form of hormetic therapy 
What can psychedelics be used for outside of treating mental health issues?  



We also discuss The Trip Report's recent acquisition by Beckley Waves.  

You can check out The Trip Report here:  https://thetripreport.substack.com/ 

Follow Zach on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zach_haigney

Follow Brom on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/therealbrom 



Make sure to subscribe to the show!

Sam Banister is a medicinal chemist and co-founder of Psylo.  Psylo is an Australian psychedelic biotech company using machine learning assisted drug design techniques to developing novel psychedelic medicines to treat mental illness.   



Sam is here to help us understand how new chemical entities are reshaping the psychedelic field; how novel psychedelic molecules are made,  and how new chemical entities are going to play a dominant role in the future of psychedelic medicine.  



Make sure to subscribe to the show!  



Follow Brom on twitter: https://twitter.com/therealbrom

Follow Sam on twitter: https://twitter.com/samuel_b_phd

Brom's VC Fund:  https://www.empath.vc

Highlighted Timestamps:  

06:12 - Are next generation psychedelics taking over in 10 years?  

16:10 - What is the process like for creating a new chemical entities?  

50:39 - Psychedelics vs Cannabis: New drug discoveries