Journey Colab

09/07/2021

Journey Colab Corp., a privately-held psychedelic pharmaceutical startup initially funded by Sam Altman and Apollo Projects LP, has raised $12M in new equity funding to develop synthetically-derived and patent-protected psychedelic products to treat addiction and other mental health disorders.

Series A investors include MBX Capital, a leading healthcare and biotechnology venture fund; Delphi VC (Pip Deely & Kalika Farmer); Uprising (Andy Lam); Lionheart Ventures (David Langer); Sam Altman and Apollo Projects (Max Altman & Jade Leung); and Drew Houston (co-founder and CEO of Dropbox).

The funding will be used to accelerate the development of Journey Colab’s portfolio of psychedelic compounds. Journey Colab’s lead compound, Mescaline HCl, is being developed for the treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), a condition with limited treatment options and significant unmet need.

More about our Series A

Psychedelics-focused biotech Journey Colab bagged $12 million to start its first human trial in 2022. The funding will push its lead program, a treatment based on a hallucinogenic compound found in some species of cactus, into phase 1.

04/07/2021

Thanks to Shayla Love of Vice for highlighting our approach to creating an ethical psychedelic company: “Some companies are trying to walk this middle path. Journey Colab, a company that is developing a synthetic version of mescaline, recently published a statement on its take on IP. ‘Journey Colab’s approach is not business as usual, and requires the courage to chart a new course—a “third way” to develop psychedelics that is neither not-for-profit nor traditional capitalism.’”

The debate around psychedelic patents reflects a deeper question about how to create a business model that puts values before profits.

03/29/2021

In the last few weeks, there has been a tremendous amount of healthy public debate about what it means to bring psychedelics to market ethically. While we at Journey Colab are thrilled to see this debate open up more broadly, the reality is that the question of how to define “ethical stewardship” is not a new one.

We believe it’s inappropriate to attempt to patent molecules that are in the public domain, and/or to patent existing, common therapeutic procedures. Approaches that seek only to stymie competition or create winner-take-all outcomes are antithetical to realizing the transformational potential of psychedelic medicines. Psychedelics promise not only to bring real healing to millions of sufferers but also to deliver a functional mental health care system that better serves all, not just the wealthy and privileged.

Read more about our stance on intellectual property here:

In the last few weeks, there has been a tremendous amount of healthy public debate about what it means to bring psychedelics to market ethically. While we at Journey Colab are thrilled to see this debate open up more broadly, the reality is that the question of how to define “ethical stewardship.....

03/15/2021

"Several startups are also exploring psychedelic-assisted group therapy. Journey Colab, backed by Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, is developing synthetic mescaline to treat mental health issues, particularly among marginalized communities, says CEO Dr. Jeeshan Chowdhury. Eventually, they aim to bring psychedelics to a group setting to bring the therapies to more people."

Read more about the power of psychedelic-assisted group therapy as a way to let patients connect more deeply.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/could-group-therapy-get-a-boost-from-psychedelics-11615395614?page=1

Researchers are beginning to investigate whether “group dosing” could help patients connect more deeply.

02/03/2021

Thank you Business Insider for featuring Journey Colab in their latest article as a top psychedelic startup. Learn more about the top 14 psychedelic startups raising the most cash to develop new ways of treating depression, addiction, and more

Insider identified the psychedelics companies that raised the most funding in 2020. Atai, at the top of our list, raised $125 million in November.

12/21/2020

Join COO, Jennifer Pisansky, January 27th from 1:30-7:30PT for the MIT CNC Future of Healthcare & Medicine Conference. Jennifer will join experts in the field who took part in the 250+ conversations that helped build Journey Colab’s stakeholder model.

Jennifer will speak alongside Rick Doblin executive director of MAPS, Matthew Baggot co-founder and CEO of Tactogen and many more to discuss the current state of , the investment and research efforts poured into and the future use and outlook for .

Register now before Jan. 4 to enjoy early-bird pricing! https://lnkd.in/gq29_3e

11/09/2020

Welcome Rebecca Lee to Journey!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-lee-b382834b/

Rebecca Lee, Journey Colab's Chief Legal Officer, has dedicated her legal career to advancing social justice and public interest causes. She is thrilled to bring her expertise to support Journey Colab's ambitious mission to chart a third way forward in psychedelic pharmaceutical development. Prior to joining Journey, Rebecca was an attorney at Altshuler Berzon LLP, where she represented progressive organizations, public entities, and labor unions in high-stakes impact litigation at all levels of the state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. While in private practice, Rebecca also represented clients engaged in strategic social change campaigns and legislative and regulatory advisory matters. Rebecca began her legal career by serving as a law clerk for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and for the Honorable Vince G. Chhabria of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. She received her bachelor's degree cm laude.

We are thrilled to have Rebecca joining our team. To learn more about our team visit www.journeycolab.com/team

11/03/2020

Journey Colab has a new face onboard, meet Sara Reed!

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarareedms/

Sara Reed will be advising Journey colab on the design and implementation of our human trials to ensure safe and equitable containers. Sara adamantly works to advance health equity and address mental health disparities among many underserved groups through community-based initiatives.

She is the CEO of Mind's iHealth Solutions, Inc. and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She trains and supervises clinicians in providing culturally responsible mental health treatment. Sara's prior research work includes participating as a Study Therapist on the Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy research study for Major Depression at Yale University. Before joining the research team at Yale, Sara was the first Black therapist to provide M**A-assisted psychotherapy in a clinical trial for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Phase 2 M**A Clinical Study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

As a socially minded therapist, Sara continuously works to expand culturally sensitive practices within her work and within the literature of the mental health field.

Read about Sara in the press

🌱Health Venture https://www.healthventure.com/blog/2020/07/13/empathic-innovation-building-solutions-for-people-not-people-for-solutions/?fbclid=IwAR1fb58e1TdmmqE9U_R2BPPZoKO7KQqWPphKyRvocK7iryyCAWPJo_IuZ4o

🌱Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/09/21/psychedelic-medicine-will-it-be-accessible-to-all/?arc404=true

🌱Psychedelics Today https://psychedelicstoday.com/2020/09/01/sara-reed-ketamine-therapy-through-a-culturally-responsible-lens/

Read Sara’s recent publications

Williams, M. T., Reed, S., & George, J. (in press). Culture and psychedelic psychotherapy: Ethnic and racial themes from three Black women therapists. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. doi: 10.1556/2054.2020.00137

Williams, M. T., Reed, S., & Aggarwal, R. (2020). Culturally-informed research design issues in a study for M**A-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 4(1), 40–50. doi: 10.1556/2054.2019.016

Sloshower, J., Guss, J., Krause, R., Wallace, R., Williams, M., Reed, S., & Skinta, M. (2020). Psilocybin-assisted therapy of major depressive disorder using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a therapeutic frame. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 15, 12-19.

Reed, S. (2020, June 19). The shadows you won't face. North Star.

10/30/2020

This week, NEO.LIFE released an article citing Journey Colab as the first psychedelic drug development company to pledge adherence to the U.N established principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and the U.N biodiversity agreement, the Nagoya protocol.

Our stakeholder model, or steward-ownership model, is an alternative to shareholder-primacy ownership. We need to protect plant medicine from an extractive capital approach and ensure that stakeholders have a seat at the table. We understand that by launching a psychedelic-drug startup, we have an ongoing commitment to the Indigenous communities from whom this sacred medicine comes, to the clinicians creating safe containers for these medicines, and to our employees, who are committed to building a new way, a third way.

As we build Journey Colab to be the gold standard, we encourage you to read about our approach and spread the word. It is our hopes that others in the space also adopt these values and center stakeholder voices.

Read more:https://bit.ly/35KBhrw

10/26/2020

Today Journey Colab was featured in FierceBiotech, who referred to our model as "a departure from for-profit biotech companies that may be focused on intellectual property and quick exits".

Journey Colab is creating a new way! Read about it here: https://lnkd.in/d3ay3JY

Psychedelics have the potential to become new, better treatments for mental illnesses, but today’s drug development model—not to mention the war on drugs—have hindered their progress. Journey Colab thinks it has the solution, and it’s caught the eye of Apollo Projects, a fund that backs moon...

10/26/2020

We are honored to announce the launch of Journey Colab and an initial investment of $3M as a part of Sam Altman's inaugural cohort of the Apollo Projects Fund https://apolloprojects.com.

Starting with mescaline, we are developing a portfolio of plant-identical psychedelic compounds for FDA approval through a stakeholder model that includes the community of clinicians, non-profits, and Indigenous groups whose work is foundational to the success of this sector.

Journey Colab is creating an innovative way in the industry! Learn more about the psychedelic pharmaceutical company: www.journeycolab.com