Dylan Beynon - CEO and Founder, Mindbloom

Dylan Beynon is the founder and CEO of Mindbloom, an at-home psychedelic therapy startup. Dylan has been named a top 25 consumer healthtech executive and one of the 100 most influential people in psychedelics. Mindbloom has facilitated 100,000+ psychedelic therapy sessions since launching in 2019, and is now the largest provider of ketamine therapy in the U.S.

Increasing access to Ketamine therapy was one of Dylan's main motivators for starting Mindloom. His family was among the 70% of those living paycheck to paycheck in America, for whom standard treatment would have been unaffordable. Mindbloom is now available in 35 states, accessible to 70% of the U.S. population, and has reduced the cost of treatment by as much as 72% (see linked study).

We spoke about the addiction fallacy related to Ketamine, and the comprehensive study Mindbloom published in the Journal of Affective Disorders demonstrating that their methodology delivers significantly better clinical outcomes than traditional in-person clinics, as well as SSRI’s, talk therapy, and legacy medications. This is a link to the study.

Dylan shared some surprising stats during our discussion:

• With SSRI's (prozac and lexapro), 47% of people get a greater than 50% improvement in depression symptoms. Talk therapy is closer to 40%, roughly the same as a placebo. 
• In peer reviewed clinical studies across 1250 participants, Mindbloom patients saw clinically significant improvement in symptoms 60% of the time.
• Mindlboom has shown through clinical research that their patients are also getting a side effect less than 5% of the time, as compared to the 30-50% of patients who experience moderate to severe side effects from SSRI’s.

We moved from the discussion of efficacy to the topic of reimbursement. Ketamine is generally not reimbursed today for depression and anxiety, with the exception of J&J, which in 2019 got S-Ketamine approved for suicidality and treatment-resistant-depression. Unfortunately, it is still extremely expensive - approximately 13x the cost of generic ketamine.  

Dylan’s personal connections to depression and SAD are extensive. He lost both his mother and sister to fentanyl overdoses, despite trying every traditional treatment available to try to help them. 

While Dylan believed that his target customers would be early adopters before starting Mindbloom, he ultimately found that it was people who have struggled with anxiety or depression for a long time. Their average customer today is 41 years old, with more over the age of 57 than in their 20’s. We spoke of some of the other potential causes of the mental health crisis in the U.S. Among them, the poor metabolic health of the average American, which is getting worse.  Finally, we discussed Dylan’s learnings across three companies about how to build a successful company culture. We touched on the gap between good and great talent, and the false choice between being direct and honest, and being kind. Mindbloom won the Tony Shay award for transformational company cultures, which is a testament to the work environment Dylan and his team have created. 

Please make sure to check out the Society for HealthCare Innovation's (SHCI) website for more content. 

Additional links: Chemical imbalance of the brain theory may not be true