Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 79 - Amir Inamdar - Cybin Inc

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Episode 79 - Amir Inamdar - Cybin Inc · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:04
  Welcome back to another episode of the Biohub podcast.
• 0:08
  Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Amir Inamada.
• 0:12
  Amir is a board certified psychiatrist and pharmaceutical
• 0:16
  physician. He's held leadership roles at
• 0:19
  major global pharma companies including AstraZeneca, Takeda
• 0:24
  and GSK. He brings over 20 years of
• 0:26
  experience in psychiatry drug development where he guided
• 0:29
  candid drugs from discovery through early phase and proof of
• 0:33
  concept clinical studies through to leading large global phase
• 0:36
  threes. Amir is currently the Chief
• 0:39
  Medical Officer at Sibin where he leads the clinical
• 0:41
  development strategy and execution with novel psychedelic
• 0:45
  compounds as well as the medical governance and oversight with
• 0:48
  all clinical programs and trials.
• 0:50
  Amir, great to have you on the podcast.
• 0:51
  Welcome. Thank you, George.
• 0:54
  It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
• 0:56
  No, not a problem at all. Look, I'm really excited to get
• 0:58
  going today. I think, you know, there's some
• 1:00
  some really good topics around psychiatry and psychedelic drug
• 1:04
  development. But to start with, just want to
• 1:07
  go back a little bit into your career.
• 1:09
  What drew you into medicine and neurology, and then more
• 1:12
  specifically psychiatry to start with?
• 1:17
  Yeah. Well, growing up, I was quite
• 1:20
  certain that I wanted to be a physician.
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  We had no physicians in the family.
• 1:27
  And it was my grandmother's dream, who was a school teacher
• 1:29
  back in India, had dreamed that at least one of her children or
• 1:35
  grandchildren would become a doctor, a physician.
• 1:39
  And I was never really into psychiatry.
• 1:41
  You know, I I joined medical school, I trained as a doctor,
• 1:46
  but I always wanted to be a surgeon.
• 1:50
  And specifically a plastic surgeon.
• 1:53
  You know, all the glamour with the plastic and cosmetic
• 1:56
  surgery. I used to spend hours in our in
• 2:00
  our casualty or emergency departments looking at surgeons,
• 2:05
  stitching up people who used to come in.
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  Quite, quite fascinating. But it so happened that I was
• 2:13
  between my residencies and there was an opening in psychiatry for
• 2:20
  a junior resident. And I said, OK, all right, it's
• 2:25
  a few months. I'll just go and see how it
• 2:29
  feels and what all psychiatry is about.
• 2:33
  And to be fair, I was warned. You know, my my colleague said,
• 2:37
  you know, it's a black hole. Nobody ever comes back from
• 2:40
  psychiatry. And it was true, the first day
• 2:45
  was quite intimidating, but by the end of the month that this
• 2:50
  is what I wanted to do. That's how I ended up in
• 2:55
  psychiatry. And while I was doing my
• 2:58
  training, I actually also started doing clinical trials
• 3:03
  being set up the research unit. And these were not just in house
• 3:09
  internal clinical trials, but were large phase three
• 3:12
  international clinical trials. I helped set up the research
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  unit and that's how I got into drug development research from
• 3:23
  the investigator of the site side.
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  Yeah, I was still learning. I was practicing psychiatry, and
• 3:32
  we still do. And at that time we did as well
• 3:36
  what we call as a revolving door psychiatry.
• 3:40
  You know, you have people come in with their problems and give
• 3:45
  them something to help them. They go back home, I feel better
• 3:49
  for a while, come back again and the cycle just keeps repeating.
• 3:54
  So it's, it's quite, it can be quite demoralizing as a
• 4:01
  clinician who is trying to help a patient, of course.
• 4:07
  And these are emotional problems.
• 4:09
  One of the things that a psychiatrist needs to do is to
• 4:12
  empathize with patients, Right? Yeah.
• 4:14
  And you empathize and there's, it's difficult how you don't
• 4:18
  feel or how you prevent yourself from feeling their emotions and
• 4:23
  their helplessness. So it can be brutal at time.
• 4:29
  So when there was an opportunity that came at GSK at the time,
• 4:34
  they were looking for somebody to help build a network of
• 4:37
  excellence clip, right? I thought, OK, this is something
• 4:43
  that I cannot refuse. Yeah.
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  And that's how I ended up in the industry.
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  And we discovered did not look back.
• 4:55
  There was no reason to. Pretty a pretty natural
• 4:58
  transition then, really, yeah. Yeah, it it, it was a bit of a
• 5:05
  juggle in the beginning. So I was kind of doing 2 jobs.
• 5:09
  I was being my patients as well in the weekends and I was also
• 5:15
  doing work as a researcher at GSK and I couldn't keep it up
• 5:22
  for a long time. So one had to give way.
• 5:28
  I, I sometimes do miss the interaction with the patients,
• 5:31
  you know, being in the clinic, being with the patient.
• 5:35
  And I know it's a bit cheesy, but I do feel that doing what I
• 5:40
  do gives me the opportunity to help thousands and millions of
• 5:44
  people versus like hundreds that I would have helped by being a
• 5:49
  psychiatrist. That makes no, it makes it makes
• 5:51
  total sense. And then you obviously progress
• 5:54
  through with GSK, what's ultimately LED you to cyber?
• 6:02
  So I had, so I, I went from GSK to Takeda to Aston and you know,
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  there it, it was and has been a challenging time and a
• 6:13
  frustrating time in neo psychiatry drug development with
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  a lot of me too stuff, a lot of a lack of generally good
• 6:28
  treatment options for patients. We have stuck to that concept of
• 6:37
  one brain region 1 receptor and one mental health issue, which
• 6:41
  is quite a myopic view. Mental health issues are not one
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  receptor disorders or they are not of a system of
• 6:52
  neurotransmitters. They are much more complex.
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  They are disorders of thinking and patterns of thinking.
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  And of course different brain regions and different receptors
• 7:04
  are involved, but they, they are not what one would call the
• 7:10
  cause of those conditions. And I, I, I've worked through
• 7:19
  multiple different novel receptor systems and molecules
• 7:25
  and seen the work in the clinic and the impact in the clinic and
• 7:29
  it's modest are drugs currently that are they help patients,
• 7:37
  don't get me wrong, but they don't do a great or better when
• 7:43
  the clinically meaningful effect on in a patient with depression
• 7:49
  is considered to be a 2 point improvement on a rating scale.
• 7:53
  And that is really sad. You know, it might simply mean
• 8:00
  that a patient with depression is probably sleeping better.
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  That's the only thing that's happening.
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  So that was quite frustrating as a clinician and as a scientist
• 8:13
  as well. As you said, you know, I had the
• 8:15
  unique perspective and have the unique perspective of being a
• 8:20
  clinician, having practiced, having seen patients and working
• 8:23
  in the industry as well. And you can see like you are
• 8:27
  developing something, but you don't really know whether it's
• 8:30
  going to be as effective in the clinic.
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  So that was the sort of vicious cycle I was stuck in and I had
• 8:42
  brought so many new molecules to the clinic, you know, from
• 8:45
  preclinical to clinical gone take taken them to proof of
• 8:49
  concept and again, seeing some modest improvements only and
• 8:53
  when I'm so it's actually an interesting story.
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  When Takeda closed down the London office with Takeda moved
• 9:04
  all the R&D staff to Boston a while ago and I had the
• 9:10
  opportunity to move there, but I decided because of family
• 9:13
  reasons that I wouldn't move to Boston.
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  We had a library in the Takeda office and almost all books seem
• 9:22
  to have gone from the library. There was just one book lying
• 9:25
  there and that was Aldox Huxley. Those to perfection in heaven
• 9:31
  and hell. You know, I started reading it
• 9:33
  and I'd never read that those two essays before.
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  It was very difficult reading. But I thought, wow, this is
• 9:43
  something really interesting. You know, this could be a, a, a
• 9:48
  real paradigm shift in treating people with mental illnesses if
• 9:52
  you are able to harness the power of these drugs.
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  And at the same time I was reading the research that was
• 9:58
  ongoing in the US and in the UK on psychedelics.
• 10:02
  So after having spent a few years at AstraZeneca, when the
• 10:06
  opportunity at at Sibin came, I just couldn't refuse it.
• 10:11
  Yeah, no, fantastic. And in terms of the, you know,
• 10:14
  psychiatry space within biotech, there's been a lot of up and
• 10:18
  downs even recently thinking back to, you know, Lycos's drug
• 10:24
  that got rejected last year. But I think there's a lot of
• 10:26
  positivity around psychiatry as a whole.
• 10:29
  You've obviously got AB fees, you know, 1.2 billion
• 10:32
  acquisition of Gilgamesh, LB Pharma, you know, a couple of
• 10:36
  weeks ago being only the second IPO.
• 10:39
  But cyber, they're a little bit different when you're talking
• 10:42
  about psychedelics. And psychedelics obviously have
• 10:44
  a unique regulatory history. What do you see as the biggest
• 10:48
  hurdles in moving these therapies from, you know,
• 10:51
  promising science but into actually approved medicines?
• 10:56
  Yeah. Well, so as you said, you know,
• 10:59
  the regulatory history is unique, but the psych but
• 11:03
  psychedelics will need to go through the same regulatory
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  rigorous process as any other drug.
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  And and not now not talking about the prohibition and you
• 11:15
  know, criminalization of these drugs and placing them on
• 11:20
  Schedule 1 and the water bugs. But really what are regulators
• 11:26
  such as the MHRA, the FDA, the EMA do?
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  And the job of the regulators is really to protect the general
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  public. They need to make sure that the
• 11:35
  medicines we give to patients are, are approved as safe and
• 11:41
  effective so people can take them knowing that the medicines
• 11:45
  will benefit them. So we have to show benefit, but
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  also safety. I must say the FDA has been a
• 11:52
  little more proactive than the European regulators.
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  Frankly, I'm disappointed with what we've seen from the EMA.
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  It's a small section in the depression guidance that was
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  updated recently, whereas the FDA published a full guidance
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  document. So they will have to go through
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  the rigorous process and only then they will be validated in
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  the same way as any other medicine has has been validated
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  and gone through the time tested process.
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  It's not perfect, but it works. And so I mean, that's one piece,
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  but I think the excitement around the psychedelics
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  potentially may may work in some ways against them.
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  There's excitement about deregulation, you know,
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  decriminalisation, there's this whole criminalisation movement
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  in the US. Many other countries have have
• 12:56
  decriminalised psychedelics. But deregulation without
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  safeguards could backfire. And, and I don't want to come
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  across as not in support of decriminalization and
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  deregulation. I think it's important and we
• 13:14
  should do it. But I also think we need to put
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  in place certain safeguards. No, no, not all naturally
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  occurring psychedelics will be developed into drugs.
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  Yeah. But approved medicines are a way
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  of ensuring, like I said before, these are the safe.
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  Yeah. And it has been demonstrated in
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  rigorous experiments and their effectiveness also has been
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  demonstrated. I think when the recent wave of
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  psychedelic drug development started, it was on the back of
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  the cannabis wave where a lot of companies with with the
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  decriminalisation, there were a lot of companies that started
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  marketing cannabis. Yeah, but psychedelics are not
• 14:09
  cannabis, right? Like three to four years ago
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  when I first started, there was a mushrooming of companies, no
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  pun intended, that aimed at developing psychedelics.
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  And that at that time they were like 48 publicly traded
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  companies. They were like 30 privately
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  funded companies and they were even more electronically traded
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  funds. Yeah, and people soon realize
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  that psychedelics are not cannabis.
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  It's not the same thing. And you drug development is a
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  different beast. And we saw consolidation in the
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  industry, some good examples, you know a type, Beckley, for
• 14:48
  example. Yeah, we've also consolidation
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  with small pharma, with Antheon. So that has actually happened
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  and people have realised that they should know what drug
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  development is and they should, and if they do not follow the
• 15:09
  same rigorous process, it will hurt them and have potential to
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  set back research by decades. So I think, again, all of these
• 15:20
  new psychedelic drugs or old psychedelic drugs in new bottle,
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  they will have to go through the same regulatory rigor, yeah, as
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  the thing else. And I think I keep saying this
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  to my team as well, that we've got one shot at it.
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  Yeah, been given an opportunity again for a second time.
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  We've got to get this right. And the biggest risk we have is
• 15:47
  that we throw it away. Yeah, it makes makes total
• 15:52
  sense. And I guess with psychedelics,
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  and you touched on it a little bit there, it's obviously not
• 15:57
  traditional, you know, drug discovery like oncology or
• 16:00
  perhaps like other some other therapeutic areas.
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  In terms of, you know, public perception, how much do you
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  think that stigma and misconceptions around
• 16:09
  psychedelics still maybe influence research investments
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  or even just, you know, general perception?
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  Yeah, I, I think not so much as patients, I think because they
• 16:22
  are desperate for new treatments.
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  But there has been some scepticism amongst researchers,
• 16:30
  investors in the scientific community.
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  It's almost too good to be true for scientists.
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  You know, I, I remember being at the American College of
• 16:39
  Neuropsychopharmacology a few years ago and was in a symposium
• 16:44
  on psychedelics, which was actually after a long time, the
• 16:48
  first fully dedicated symposium and psychedelics, which
• 16:52
  indicated the interest. But then at the end of the
• 16:55
  symposium, somebody stood up and said, oh, we understand it
• 16:59
  works, but we don't know how it works.
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  So you need to show us how we, how it works.
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  And it was like, OK, this is too good to be true.
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  We understand it works, but we don't understand how it works.
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  So we don't like it and that is the power of these drugs and at
• 17:17
  times when they are so powerful they're almost magical and
• 17:20
  people find it difficult to believe in magic.
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  There's of course still this overhang of abuse potential due
• 17:28
  to the war on drugs. Regulators view psychedelics
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  from the same lens as other habit forming drugs, but these
• 17:36
  are amongst the safest of drugs. Some work done by David Nutt and
• 17:43
  his group. You know, it's published as
• 17:45
  well, which shows that when you look at the drugs of abuse,
• 17:52
  psychedelics actually are at the bottom of that list in terms of
• 17:57
  abuse potential. So these things kind of spill
• 18:02
  over to the investors as well and they tend to be skeptical,
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  partly also because no psychedelic has yet been
• 18:09
  approved. These are costly studies to do,
• 18:13
  costly trials and development programs.
• 18:17
  But this seems to be changing slowly but surely.
• 18:22
  There is, and I see it everyday in my interaction, there is
• 18:26
  increased and renewed interest. You highlighted those two deals.
• 18:32
  Big Pharma, you know, big pharma has been really sceptical and I
• 18:37
  see that as really something very positive and you know, an
• 18:43
  expression and and confirmation of the potential of these will
• 18:48
  make a big change. Yeah.
• 18:51
  And I guess hoping that especially a little bit more
• 18:54
  interest from the big farmers at the moment, hopefully now the
• 18:57
  momentum's going to shift back towards psychedelics and
• 19:01
  psychiatry as a whole. In terms of talking a little bit
• 19:04
  more about cyber, cyber then more specifically, you've
• 19:08
  obviously got multiple programmes in developments,
• 19:10
  including phase three asset targeting MDD and also Phase 2IN
• 19:14
  generalised anxiety disorder, which you recently completed
• 19:18
  enrolment for. Can you just walk us through
• 19:19
  what excites you most about the pipeline right now?
• 19:22
  Yeah, well, there's a lot to be excited about at Siben, and we
• 19:28
  have this joke internally every day.
• 19:32
  The first message I sent to my colleagues is that this is a big
• 19:36
  day. And so we, we, we are excited
• 19:40
  every day. We've got a phase three asset in
• 19:43
  Cy 003, which has got breakthrough therapy
• 19:47
  designation. Not many people go their entire
• 19:50
  careers in the industry without having the opportunity to work
• 19:54
  on a phase three asset, leave alone an asset that was got
• 19:57
  breakthrough therapy. I mean, that gives me goosebumps
• 20:01
  when I think about. We have faced some unique
• 20:05
  challenges in setting up our phase three studies.
• 20:08
  These are not easy study to do, but we've learned and we are
• 20:12
  we've come up with some very unique and innovative solutions
• 20:16
  and we remain on track to deliver our first phase three
• 20:20
  study. And it unbelievable even as I
• 20:24
  say it mid next year we hope to complete our enrolment in our
• 20:28
  first study, the approach track and we will deliver our top line
• 20:33
  data from that phase three study by the end of next year, which
• 20:37
  basically means we remain on track to deliver new drug
• 20:41
  application in 2027 by the end of 27.
• 20:46
  So that is not too far behind companies that started.
• 20:49
  It's a lot of 1,000,000 miles away, yeah.
• 20:52
  And it's also, when you put that into context of where we
• 20:54
  started, we were years behind our competition.
• 20:59
  Yeah. So that that makes me incredibly
• 21:02
  proud of the work that we have been doing in cyber.
• 21:07
  And that's largely also because everybody in the company is
• 21:12
  driven by the single mission of making change to people's lives.
• 21:18
  You know, people's who need people who are struggling
• 21:22
  currently and would are in dire need of something that is game
• 21:29
  changing for the DMT, you know, be looking at top line results
• 21:33
  first quarter next year. That's the study you referred
• 21:36
  to. We completed enrolment.
• 21:38
  Everything is on track. So we've got like 2 clinical
• 21:45
  programs that are protected by robust IT and are well into
• 21:53
  development and have the potential to change the
• 21:55
  treatment paradigm. And following that, we've got
• 21:57
  the CYB 005, the phenethylene ethylamine program, which has
• 22:04
  some unique physical chemical properties that make it suited
• 22:07
  to treat a range of other neuropsychiatric disorders.
• 22:10
  So sure, yeah, everything at Sibin currently excites me.
• 22:15
  Yeah. No, it's you're in a great
• 22:17
  position. And like you said that the time
• 22:19
  frame that you've managed to to do all this in and like you
• 22:22
  said, expecting, you know, 2027, it's not a million miles away
• 22:26
  from potentially launching that, that NDAI know, when we spoke
• 22:29
  before you, you obviously mentioned the psychiatry of the
• 22:32
  psychedelic biotech spaces, you know, increasingly competitive.
• 22:35
  There's not a huge amount of companies, you know, out there
• 22:38
  targeting things. You all seem to to know everyone
• 22:41
  and, you know, keep a really close eye on on everything that
• 22:43
  you do. What do you think like sets
• 22:46
  Siben apart in terms of the the science or or the approach that
• 22:49
  you guys are taking? Yeah.
• 22:52
  I, I, I think it's, well many things.
• 22:56
  First and foremost in this sector, IP protection is really
• 23:01
  important, right? Yeah.
• 23:02
  Then we value for investors and our assets are IP protect
• 23:08
  protected, which will last way beyond, you know, the protection
• 23:15
  runs out for our nearest competitors.
• 23:18
  We've got D risk molecules that are on the verge of being
• 23:21
  approved as medicines and I think it's our approach to drug
• 23:24
  development which is non linear. It is our people and we've with
• 23:32
  with people who are subject matter experts in the area.
• 23:35
  We have consistently made decisions that are strategic and
• 23:41
  that have set us apart from our competition.
• 23:44
  For example, when we think of CYV 003, we think about our a
• 23:50
  decision to go with two dose at at a time where where everybody
• 23:55
  was like 01 and done single dose of psilocybin magic.
• 24:00
  And, and we did our research and we said, no, this is not going
• 24:03
  to work unlike and we were vindicated with our phase two
• 24:09
  data where we saw durability to a year a year people in
• 24:15
  virtually all people in remission at the dose that we
• 24:18
  are testing in phase three. Our decision to go for MDD
• 24:23
  versus TRD in terms of the complexities of conducting
• 24:31
  clinical trials and demonstrating positive results.
• 24:34
  You, you, you know that with TRD, with treatment resistant
• 24:40
  depression, it's orders of magnitude more difficult.
• 24:44
  And, and that's seen in some of the recent data.
• 24:47
  You know, Compass recently delivered the top line with
• 24:50
  three or four points improvement on the mattress.
• 24:52
  It's TRD, it's, it's, it's big in TRD, right.
• 24:55
  It's clinically meaningful, but when you compare that with our
• 25:00
  Phase 2IN MDD, albeit a different population, so about
• 25:05
  13 to 14 points. So it becomes really difficult
• 25:10
  in in a population that is inherently challenging to
• 25:15
  conduct clinical trials. We took another decision about
• 25:19
  adjunctive treatment versus monotherapy while everybody was
• 25:23
  saying we don't want people on SSRIs, we don't know whether
• 25:27
  there'll be serotonin syndrome or not.
• 25:30
  So we are going to ask them to stop their medication.
• 25:33
  Well, if you ask people with depression who are on
• 25:36
  antidepressants to stop their medications, there is a risk of
• 25:41
  discontinuation symptoms. And and we did our research, we
• 25:46
  said well, there's actually no data to suggest anything adverse
• 25:50
  with adjunctive treatment with the SSRI and we allowed that.
• 25:55
  So those are some of the key strategic decisions we took
• 25:59
  which has which has us up for success on the CYB 3 program on
• 26:05
  CYB 4 and which is the new traded DMTI think we are the
• 26:09
  only company with an intramuscular delivery of ADMT
• 26:13
  analogue, which gives an experience that's smooth.
• 26:18
  And when I say that, what I mean is the only way you get DMT into
• 26:26
  the body traditionally has been through IVIV administrator and
• 26:33
  that's a JAR experience. But within a muscular, it
• 26:37
  becomes a bit more smooth and it's more suited to people as a
• 26:42
  as a treatment, as a medicine, it's better suited.
• 26:46
  And I'm actually proud of the work that we've done in this
• 26:49
  space with understanding the the dosing with DMT that was
• 26:56
  generated through 5 early phase studies with almost 250
• 27:01
  participants worth of data give a very fine understanding of
• 27:05
  what it will take to develop an effective drug in the space.
• 27:11
  So no, I mean, it pains me to see how undervalued we are.
• 27:17
  And I'm not this person. So I, I only see what I see and
• 27:23
  I only understand what I understand.
• 27:24
  But I am seeing renewed scientific interest and investor
• 27:29
  interest. I remain bullish that we will do
• 27:32
  well in this space. Yeah, I think even just
• 27:36
  listening to your talk and I'm sure all the listeners will be
• 27:38
  able to just hear the passion that comes through as well that
• 27:41
  they talk about, you know, helping patients in this space.
• 27:45
  I know obviously the future outlook in biotech is always
• 27:50
  unpredictable. You've obviously set yourself
• 27:53
  up, you know, really well. What are you hoping?
• 27:56
  And I know obviously it's the the ultimate end goal is to get
• 27:59
  these these medicines into patients and approved.
• 28:01
  But how optimistic are you looking ahead over the next sort
• 28:04
  of three to five years for for cyber and then also for the
• 28:08
  psychedelic space as a whole? Yeah, I mean the the next few
• 28:13
  years are going to be kind of pivotal and game changing with
• 28:18
  respect to psychedelics without with other companies delivering
• 28:24
  near term milestones as well. I wouldn't see that as a
• 28:28
  positive. You know, as they say, rising
• 28:33
  tide raises all ships. You know, it's it's the good
• 28:37
  news for one of us is good news for everyone.
• 28:41
  Yeah, I think there will be a paradigm shift in mental health
• 28:46
  treatment. And I know that term has been
• 28:48
  beaten to death, but it truly capsulate, you know,
• 28:53
  encapsulates what what is going to happen in this space in my in
• 28:59
  my understanding. We will change the way we think
• 29:03
  of people with mental health problems in the next couple of
• 29:06
  years. We'll see, you know, couples
• 29:09
  mind Med coming up with near term milestones.
• 29:12
  We are going to come up with and deliver some incredible
• 29:16
  milestones with our programs as well in the next few years.
• 29:21
  I hope we will have to novel drugs approved to address
• 29:26
  significant unmet need in this area and with durability up to a
• 29:31
  year. These will be transformational
• 29:33
  treatments that we will deliver in a standard of care
• 29:39
  psychosocial support model in what we are now referring to as
• 29:46
  an interventional psychiatry space.
• 29:49
  These will be treatments that will be delivered in the clinic.
• 29:54
  These are not, you know, take at home pills.
• 29:59
  A good example of that and how that will change the clinical
• 30:05
  landscape is Humira. You know, Humira, when it first
• 30:10
  came as a treatment, it, it changed the landscape of how
• 30:16
  those drugs were delivered. And more recent in more recent
• 30:21
  memory, this it, it's bravado, that esketamine that is
• 30:25
  delivered in the clinics and has led to the evolution of that
• 30:30
  clinical delivery model. And when psychedelics are
• 30:33
  launched, I think they will benefit from the infrastructure
• 30:38
  that's been created through bravado clinics, but they will
• 30:42
  also require the healthcare system to adapt.
• 30:44
  And it will adapt because right now, if you think of people
• 30:51
  receiving throughout or they have to go to the clinic almost
• 30:54
  50 * a year, so one patient, 50 * a year, versus if you think of
• 31:01
  psychedelics, one or two visits, let's assume 2 visits in a year.
• 31:06
  It allows you to reach that many more patients.
• 31:11
  Well, yeah, we we will hopefully also shift the way we think
• 31:16
  about people with mental health conditions.
• 31:18
  And once we get our first indications approved, we will
• 31:24
  look to expand to other indications and continue
• 31:27
  building, building value in not just our portfolio, but building
• 31:32
  value for people with mental health problems.
• 31:35
  Yeah, and I guess as well, especially the the shift in
• 31:38
  society where mental health isn't necessarily A to boot
• 31:41
  objects to to talk about anymore.
• 31:44
  It is a serious unmet medical need as you mentioned, like you
• 31:47
  said, no psychedelic approved drugs on the market.
• 31:50
  So it's a really interesting next couple of years.
• 31:53
  We're obviously we're rooting for you and hope that, you know,
• 31:56
  everything goes goes really well.
• 31:58
  It's been a fascinating conversation.
• 32:01
  I think, you know, the listeners are really going to enjoy
• 32:03
  learning more about psychedelics as well, because I think as you
• 32:07
  mentioned, I don't think it's a huge market at the moment in
• 32:10
  terms of, you know, people are being aware and it is a
• 32:13
  possibility for even to to treat these psychiatry drugs.
• 32:16
  So no, really enjoyed this conversation.
• 32:19
  We always finish on this traditional final question, but
• 32:24
  finally, if you could have dinner with any scientist or
• 32:27
  innovator, past or present, who would it be and why?
• 32:33
  Well, without doubt, it'll have to be Maria Sabina, the
• 32:38
  kurandera from Oaxaca in Mexico. And maybe it's an It's an
• 32:45
  unconventional response, but known for her knowledge of
• 32:48
  ritualistic use of psilocybin mushrooms, she was the one who
• 32:52
  introduced the West to the power of these psychedelics.
• 32:57
  Famous in 60s seventies counterculture and interestingly
• 33:02
  brought to the world by a banker from JP Morgan in the 1957 issue
• 33:08
  of Life magazine. Also known for John Lennon and
• 33:15
  his wife visiting him in her in 196069.
• 33:20
  I think so, yeah. It it won't be a dinner, but it
• 33:24
  would. It'll probably be Maria Sabina
• 33:28
  counting out the mushrooms in tears as she always did, and
• 33:32
  probably handing me 6 pairs to chew and go on a journey into
• 33:35
  the unconscious. Wow, No, I can imagine.
• 33:40
  Well, look, fantastic to have you on, Amir.
• 33:42
  Thank you for your time. And we, yeah, it was a great
• 33:44
  conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure,
• 33:48
  George. Thank you so much for having me.