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- [00:05]
Keith Kurlander
So that landscape is different in terms of what you're investing in. You're not investing in a drug that people are going to be taking every day of their life. You're investing in a drug that will hopefully help somebody get unstuck from resistant forms of mental health conditions and then get to start moving on with their life.
- [00:30]
Matt Grier
That was Keith Kurlander, co author of the new book Psychedelic Therapy, A revolutionary approach to restoring mental health and reclaiming your life. I'm Motley fool producer Matt Grier. Motley fool analyst Sanmeet Dayo recently talked with Kurtlander and co author Dr. Will Vanderveer about that psychedelic revolution and the investing opportunities ahead. Enjoy.
- [00:55]
Sanmeet Dayo
Hey fools. Today we're zooming out to look at a massive paradigm shift happening in the health sector. One that has profound implication for a culture or well being and the broader economic landscape. So for decades, traditional mental health systems relied heavily on managing symptoms. But there's a growing movement backed by serious clinical research and FDA trials pointing toward a totally different model. It's moving fast. Just recently Compass Pathways, which is publicly traded tickers CMPS, saw its stock jump over 23% after announcing that it's phase three trials for COMP360, a psilocybin treatment, demonstrate a well tolerated safety profile. And now they're gearing up for the fda. So as psychedelic stocks rise on the news, my guests today argue that it's not a hype trade, but rather the kind of the birth of a brand new healthcare category. So Today I have Dr. Will Vanderveer and Keith Kerlander, founders of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and authors of the new book Psychedelic Therapy, A revolutionary approach to restoring mental health and reconing your life. Well, Keith, welcome to the show.
- [01:54]
Keith Kurlander
Thanks. Good to be here.
- [01:55]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Great to be with you.
- [01:56]
Sanmeet Dayo
Let's start right at the foundation. You know, you argue at the recent surge in stocks like Compass Pathways isn't just a hype trade, but the birth of a brand new healthcare category. So what belief about psychedelic therapy do most people and most investors get completely wrong? And why does this misunderstanding matter?
- [02:12]
Keith Kurlander
Well, I would say that one thing investors may not know is psychedelic therapy is an interventional approach much different than traditional psycho farm interventions where you're, you know, it's not a dale intervention. This is more similar to something like TMS to treat depression where it's like you know, one to six or whatever amount of times. So you know, most investors wouldn't understand that unless they went and really dove in a little bit. So that landscape is different in terms of what you're investing in. You're not investing in a drug that people are going to be taking every day of their life. You're investing in a drug that will hopefully help, help somebody get unstuck from resistant forms of mental health conditions and then get to start moving on with their life. So in that sense, you need to know what you're looking at in terms of, if you want to look at things that mimic how these might work. In terms of investing in it, I
- [03:10]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
would add that we don't have a great track record speaking from the perspective of a prescriber, of a psychiatrist, that's me, in terms of getting people through the mental health system and then out the door and putting psychiatry behind them. What's exciting about this new interventional approach is that you're seeing people getting exposed to a drug, as Keith said, one time, three times, five times, with a durable, long lasting benefit. And we're talking about a huge market here of treatment resistant conditions. So for example, when you look at just treatment resistant depression globally, you're looking at 100 million people who are suffering from that condition, which is one third of the total people dealing with depression on the planet. So it's a big segment of the group of people who are dealing with depression who don't respond to the currently available, currently approved treatments.
- [04:06]
Sanmeet Dayo
Now taking a step back because as we're talking about this, I want to make sure that the viewers and our members understand what exactly is psychedelic therapy? What is it replacing and then what is it doing? Is it a drug, is it a therapy sessions? Like what, what does it involve if, like let's say they were to undergo these treatments?
- [04:24]
Keith Kurlander
Well, what it's not is taking, you know, LSD in your backyard and staring at the sky for six hours and playing Grateful Dead, not knocking that. Many of us have been there, but it's not that, right? So it's a little different. So what it is is you're combining certain medicines that are being studied, psychedelic medicines that are being studied with therapy. And that looks like the therapy has stages. So you're doing therapy prior to doing the medicine. So you're preparing for this in many different ways. And then you have sessions typically with a therapist in the room during the sessions on the medicine. And then you're doing work after. These medicines are both amplifying a therapeutic process the person is going through. And then also the medicines are actually working on your brain too biologically and doing things there. So you get a two for one with this treatment Whereas, let's say an depressants, which, you know, Will kind of mentioned really briefly, you know, those are working on your brain. You're not pairing them with therapy in this. In the sense where that's enhancing the therapy. So this is very unique in that way.
- [05:32]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Yeah. And another dimension of it, on the neuroscience level of it, is that we are opening up a person's unconscious mind in a way that ordinary therapy doesn't do and ordinary medications doesn't do. And we're firm believers in the view, just based on the results that are coming out in these FDA trials, is that the keys to healing often reside inside this unconscious mind that's hard to access, whether it's in therapy or with medications. So another way to say that is that we're approaching the root cause of the condition by evoking what's inside of you as opposed to the current approach. And how I was trained to medicate depression or ptsd, for example, is that you use these conventional medications you take every day to suppress your symptoms, and that might help you a lot. So there's nothing wrong with that. But when you stop taking the medications, typically sooner or later the symptoms come back. So you haven't actually dealt with the root cause that's underneath the symptoms.
- [06:35]
Sanmeet Dayo
You know, you described earlier, Psychedelics is not, you know, taking LSD out on our lawn, listening to, you know, Grateful Dead. How do we get from that fringe counterculture of the 60s to what that was viewed of psychedelics, LSD mushrooms, all those, to where we are today, where we're clearing phase three FDA trials? What was kind of a tipping point that the medical establishment said, all right, this is actually a serious therapy.
- [07:00]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
I mean, one of the big issues that we see is the rates of suicide in veterans. So when you talk about how do we get to a tipping point, it's a hard argument to make to get on a soapbox and say, we're taking good care of our veterans. It's hard to argue that because of how much those people are suffering when they get back from combat. Typically, we see, for example, in one VA study over the period of time from 2001 to 2014, 30,000 suicides amongst veterans, while during that time we were at war and only 7,000 people were killed in active duty. So when you have suicide rates that exceed four times what's happening in terms of combat deaths, that gets people's attention, and it goes to show you that we're not treating these conditions well enough. So at that point, it becomes an imperative to take you could say more risk to take the risk of going outside of the dominant paradigm or the conventional mindset about how to work with these conditions.
- [08:04]
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- [09:10]
Sanmeet Dayo
So whenever we get kind of an industry breakthrough like this, you know, investors tend to flood in. It's the next hot thing, the next big thing. And this arguably so can become a very, very big thing. You stated some of the market potential there. When you look at kind of the suitability as an investment in this industry right now, what are kind of the red flags individual investors should be watching for? I'll kick that to you, Keith.
- [09:31]
Keith Kurlander
Well, there's different places you could be investing. Obviously you can invest in the biopharm companies that are putting out the drugs and that's kind of the most straightforward thing to be investing in. I mean, I think one thing is, you know, if you're not a biopharm investor, a lot of drugs don't get through their application in phase three. And that's just the reality. So there's that. You have to look out for that. We had a rejection from MDMA in 2024. Now I think the positive thing that compass is going for them is that they did their study in a very different way than the previous study was done on mdma. The MDMA study had one component to it that is a little challenging for the FDA to understand, which is the therapy. It was a very embedded part of the actual research. Whereas they really tried to look at the drug effect more so isolated in the psilocybin studies and not look at the therapy as much. They call it psychological support. So that's a very positive thing to be aware of. Is like, you know, there something that the FDA is going to be able to wrap their head around a little easier for this particular medicine. And then also thinking about a lot of these kind of interventional tools, it's like, where's the service happening? There's going to be a little, a bit of a service, you know, kind of flourishing happening in pockets. So that is an investment, you know, if you, if you can get into the places that really proliferate this in the beginning, some of the healthcare systems and things that, that can go well too. A lot of the money to be made might be there where these, the service actually cost the money. The real revenue is, is the $10,000, $20,000 treatment versus the five or $800 drug. So that's something to consider.
- [11:18]
Sanmeet Dayo
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because you know, when we look at companies, we look for kind of a moat, you know, a competitive advantage that these companies have, traditional biopharma, they have patents and then they have those last for a very long time. No one else can produce them in this industry. Where do you think, and you touched on it briefly, where do you think some of those moats or competitive advantages will be? Whether it be like synthetic patents, like Comp360, the clinics, the therapy protocols. Where do you think that advantage will be? I'll take it to you will.
- [11:45]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Well, it's an interesting moment because as we've been talking about, Compass pathways is ahead of the pack in terms of their trajectory toward the end of phase three with fda. And we all know that getting first to market is a huge advantage competitively, right? But on the other hand, and this is kind of an interesting irony to keep thinking about and looking into is that psilocybin, whether it's synthetic or the plant based one as a product, as an intervention is a relatively long experience for the patient too. And the service center, the clinic to wrap their head around, we're talking about a five or six hour experience. So you know, for a patient and for a clinic staffing setup, it's an all day experience essentially for the patient to get that intervention. You compare that with some of the other Products that are in the pipeline.
- [12:36]
Sanmeet Dayo
So I want to kind of help ground it for listeners. What's kind of a real world story that kind of captures very heart of your argument that you make in your book.
- [12:43]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
What comes to mind right off the bat is a young combat veteran that we treated in one of our studies. I'll call him Charles. That's the name I gave him in the book. It's not his real name. And I think he was 24 when I met him. And he had done a tour in Iraq and had. He had a condition that we see a lot in veterans called moral injury, where it's a very specific type of trauma, where the roles of engagement that the roles of conduct in the combat theater are not followed, and you bear witness to that. You see your commanding officer doing things that are inhumane or could even be considered war crimes, for example. And your psyche doesn't know what to do with that because you joined the armed forces for the reasons that most people do, which is because you care about your country and you are there to defend and protect something that you believe in that stands behind you, not because you have any desire to go out and kill people. Right? But when children are carrying IEDs or luring soldiers into situations and children get killed, there can be a lasting, traumatic impact from that. And the sort of nature of moral injury is that you can develop a view that your soul is irredeemable from the things that you witnessed or that you did yourself. So this particular young man went to the VA and did the things that people often do when they get home. They go and seek services, and often they get prescribed a thing called the combat cocktail, where every drug under the sun, antipsychotics, antianxiety, antidepressants, mood stabilizers and so on, often in combination with essentially no benefits. So Charles is just a good example of many of the young people who come back from war. So he decided to sign up for the study. And on the effect of mdma, he got to have a conversation with his maker. He's a Christian young man, and got to have a conversation about his soul and presented the view inside of his state that he was in to God of I believe I have a mark on my soul. And what does this mean and what happens with MDMA that's very interesting is that people sometimes can access states of self, compassion, and a capacity to see the events of their trauma from a sort of 30,000 foot view. And what he learned in that conversation inside of himself was that as a human being, it wasn't his role to make that judgment about his soul. He remembered and accessed the teachings of his religion that it was up to God to decide what was going to happen to his soul. It wasn't up to him. And from there he was able to forgive himself and what his role was and the things that he saw in combat. And he stepped into. Something that I want to mention, because it's really important here, is that he began to see that everything that he had experienced in his life, including combat experiences, shaped him to be the person that he is today. And he reflected on, do I love who I am today? Am I acceptable as a flawed human being? Can I accept myself and my flaws? And the answer was yes. And so he began this journey into what we call post traumatic growth, where you haven't just gotten to a place where you don't have symptoms anymore, which he did get to that point, but you're going into a place of who am I? What are my gifts and talents? And how do I give those gifts and talents to the world? So this is a really underemphasized aspect of healing from trauma, is getting to a place where now you're ready to deliver the goods of who you are in the world. Very powerful.
- [16:58]
Sanmeet Dayo
Yeah. Yeah. And I can only imagine traditional therapy may or may not have helped him ever get to that point. And that's like the real game changer is that, you know, it's like they could, they could have therapy, but he may have never come across that or realization.
- [17:15]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Right.
- [17:15]
Sanmeet Dayo
Powerful. That's powerful stuff. And when I hear stories about it too, I'm, I'm. I'm kind of blown away by the impact it can have, the positive impact it can have. So I'm going to take a little shift here and talk a little bit. Now. You have this bunny industry that could really radically change antidepressants and that pharmaceutical business model. So how is big pharma reacting to this? You know, what, are they fighting the fda? Are they ignoring it? Are they buying up smaller psychedelic companies to see it as a growth area for them? They can't be taking it lightly.
- [17:49]
Keith Kurlander
I don't think they're that yet interested in it, quite frankly. And the reason is, again, because it's this interventional model, it's typically used for treatment resistance when drugs are failing. So I think they still have, you know, the lion's share of patients out there that are going to use antidepressants and other medications, and sometimes they need them. I don't honestly think this will impact that industry. All that much, at least for a long time is my guess. So I think they're not that interested yet in it. But I would say, you know, let's see what happens in 10, 15 years if we get a number of approvals and there is a subset of people that are like, I won't do those medications. I want something to help me get to the bottom of what I'm really dealing with and I want to go down that road. And it, you know, a subset enough of those people do that and maybe, maybe we will start to see them get more interested. But I haven't really seen that as they're not on the offensive so much so. And, you know, I want to hope that, and I think this is true mostly. Like I know people in research and pharma, like they're in it to help people. Sure, they're there to make a profit, but they want people to be helped. So I think they have their eyes on it is my guess. And we see where this all goes kind of thing.
- [19:15]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
I just want to add that I think it's one of those moments where you don't want to be the first one at the party, but you also don't want to be the last one at the party. And there was a high profile acquisition in, I think it was August of last year when Gilgamesh was bought by Abbvie on the basis of a psychedelic compound that's called Bretticilocin. So there are these early adopters, you could say, or people who are really willing to take a position and it's a bet. The person who's there first is obviously going to take more risk, but they also have more gain potentially.
- [19:54]
Keith Kurlander
Yeah. And there was of course, again, Spravato, that was big Pharma, that brought Spravato to market, which is Ketamine, Ketamine analog. And you know, that I think was a lot safer because ketamine's already been around for decades. It's not marketed as a psychedelic inside the medical space. So that was a safer bet. But that is a sign of, you know, pharma went down that road there. So I think letting the smaller companies do more of the grassroots work of can we get other types of psychedelics to market?
- [20:25]
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- [21:36]
Sanmeet Dayo
Finally, I'll ask you if someone's listening today that never reads the book, what is one idea that you hope they walk away with? And I'll leave that for both of you to answer.
- [21:45]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
So Will, if we start. I think it starts with the view that we talk about a little bit in the book that I've held for a long time is that anyone can heal given the right supports. The example I used earlier of Charles going to the VA and trying to get a result and not getting the benefits from conventional care approaches illustrates the point that when you have the right supports, you can not only put your mental illness in remission, but you can also grow out of it and become a really productive contributor to society. Most of mental health care is really just oriented toward eliminating the symptoms. It sort of stops at that point. And what we are here to say and what I think psychedelic therapy done well represents is the opportunity to not just eliminate symptoms, but to be more well than you were before you encountered these troubles in the first place.
- [22:47]
Keith Kurlander
I piggyback on what Will is saying that we have been fed a lot of information from the medical establishment, again not, not with mal intention and also culturally about what mental illness is and what mental health is. What's depression? What is this thing depression, anxiety? You know, there's a lot of just stereotypes about this stuff out there and it's sort of like, well it's. I think a lot of people feel like I've inherited this or I. There's not a lot I can do about it. On some level, I have some symptoms I need to get rid of. And I would say that there are actually known causes. Having these symptoms are actually signals in your body that you just gotta go understand how these signals work to go address the cause. And once you do that, you get well. So I would say that people need to a re education, you know, not everyone, but a lot of people do to just understand, like, where do these things come from? Why are so many people struggling? Why is one in two people have had a pretty significant mental health illness in their life? Why does that happen? And then how do you solve it? So once you have that knowledge, this kind of, you know, elephant in the room can start to go away, I think, and we can, we can start to get more. Well, great.
- [24:09]
Sanmeet Dayo
Well, that's a perfect place to leave it, you know. And the book again is Psychedelic Therapy Revolutionary Approach to Restoring Mental Health and Reclaiming youg Life. I believe it starts selling on Amazon tomorrow.
- [24:19]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Is that, is that correct?
- [24:20]
Keith Kurlander
Correct. Yep.
- [24:21]
Sanmeet Dayo
Great timing here for the book.
- [24:22]
Keith Kurlander
Yes.
- [24:22]
Sanmeet Dayo
Thank you, Will and Keith, for joining us today and exploring this topic.
- [24:27]
Keith Kurlander
Thanks so much.
- [24:27]
Dr. Will Vanderveer
Thanks, Emmy.
- [24:31]
Matt Grier
As always. People in the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes for the Motley fool money team, I'm Matt Grier. Thanks for listening and we will see you tomorrow.