WTR Healthcare Happenings
WTR Healthcare Happenings is a weekly conversation with healthcare executives, medical experts, and investors on recent clinical data or industry-driving events in healthcare.
WTR Healthcare Happenings
The Psychedelic Inflection Point: Big Pharma, FDA, and the Next Wave of Brain Medicines
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In this episode of WTR Healthcare Happenings, Doug Drysdale, biopharma veteran and founder of Katagen, former CEO of Cybin (now Helus Pharma), joins WTR's Tim Gerdeman and analyst Robert Sassoon to explore whether psychedelic medicine has moved from speculative niche to mainstream therapeutic category. The discussion covers Eli Lilly's $2.8 billion upfront acquisition of Atai Beckley and whether the price was fair on both sides, the broader shift of M&A capital toward CNS and neurology assets over oncology, and why Atai may have been the only available late-stage asset given Compass Pathways' stand-alone positioning, GH Research's clinical challenges, and Helus Pharma's early-stage data. It closes with Drysdale's critique of the FDA's final guidance, particularly its emphasis on active comparators and year-long placebo control, and the resulting case for non-hallucinogenic neuroplastogens.