A British start-up using the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms to treat clinical depression has raised $80 million from investors, including Peter Thiel, the billionaire Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor.
Compass Pathways will use the funds to broaden its research into psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in the fungus.
Psilocybe, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, could also help against other hard-to-treat mental health conditions
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The company is already conducting a trial to discover whether it can help people suffering from treatment-resistant depression. George Goldsmith, chief executive and co-founder, said that he wanted to find out if psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds could be effective against more hard-to-treat mental health conditions, including anorexia, body dysmorphic disorder and bipolar II disorder.
“It’s a fair amount of money, but the problem [of treatment-resistant mental health conditions] is large and the ability