Billionaire proposes plan to take control of Lykos; Colorado’s Natural Medicine Program launches; Could Minnesota be next?; Mail-order ketamine for injection
Plus: New year, new legislation; Probing cognitive consequences of HPPD
Happy Friday and welcome back to The Microdose, an independent journalism newsletter brought to you by the U.C. Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Billionaire investor proposes plan to take control of Lykos Therapeutics
Billionaire Antonio Gracias has pitched a plan to investors in which he would take a controlling stake in Lykos Therapeutics, reports the Financial Times. Last summer, Lykos submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the use of MDMA in the treatment of PTSD, but the application was not successful; shortly after, the company laid off 75% of its employees.
Gracias runs Valor Equity Partners, a private equity firm, and is known as a loyal backer of Elon Musk’s endeavors. He was an early investor in Tesla and previously served as a director at the company. He was also an investor in SpaceX and helped Musk line up financing for his purchase of Twitter, now known as X. The Lykos takeover deal, according to FT reporter Oliver Barnes, will be heard by the Lykos board today.
Colorado’s Natural Medicine Program launches
As of December 31, Colorado’s Natural Medicine Program is taking applications for manufacturer, facilitator, healing center, and testing licenses. Applying for licenses is free for facilitators, but fees range between several hundred to several thousand dollars. The Microdose reached out to the state’s Natural Medicine Division seeking statistics on how many applications have been submitted thus far in 2025, but did not receive a response. As of Thursday afternoon, according to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA)’s records, one facilitator and 11 training programs have received licenses; of those training programs, five are based in Colorado.
Some details about how the program will operate are still in flux. The version of the state’s rules proposed this fall allowed psilocybin sessions outside of licensed healing centers, but DORA quietly updated those rules to drastically narrow the circumstances under which at-home psilocybin was permitted. After outcry from advocates, DORA held a listening session about these changes this week, and will make a final decision next week. (For more details, read Psychedelic Alpha’s dispatch detailing what it calls the Natural Medicine program’s “duplicitous December.”)
Additionally, some cities and towns in the state are passing ordinances meant to restrict the operation of healing centers. (State law prohibits cities from outright banning such businesses.) The city council of Colorado Springs voted 9-0 to expand the buffer zone between healing centers and schools, substance use disorder treatment centers, and daycares from 1,000 feet, per state law, to a mile. Some residents have criticized that move as functionally banning healing centers in the city.
The town of Greeley also passed stricter regulations, adding residential properties, natural areas, museums and art galleries, gyms, animal care facilities, as well as other healing centers to the list of properties from which all healing centers must maintain a 1000 foot buffer zone, according to the Greeley Tribune. Castle Rock, CO has passed an ordinance restricting the hours of operation of healing centers to between 8am and 5pm on weekdays; Monument, CO has passed a similar business hour restriction ordinance, and also restricted businesses to four small zones of the city.
Could Minnesota be next?
In 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed an omnibus health bill that included the creation of the state’s Psychedelic Medicine Task Force. That group has met monthly for the last year, and just released a report with its recommendations. Of the group’s 23 members, 75 percent voted in favor of recommending that the state “create a state-regulated clinical program for the therapeutic administration of psilocybin-containing mushrooms,” and 68 percent voted to recommend removing criminal penalties for use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms. (The group also considered proposals to recommend launching a state-regulated, adult-use market for psilocybin and a state program for the clinical administration of LSD and MDMA, but neither passed a vote from the task force’s members.)
Should the state follow through with the task force’s recommendation to create a psilocybin program, the group writes that the state “can learn lessons from Oregon and Colorado.” They suggest the state should consider ways to keep the cost of sessions low; they write that Oregon’s requirement that people receive psilocybin at a service center drives up costs, and that funding the program through charging licensing fees to facilitators passes on costs to the consumer.
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Mail-order ketamine for injection
Next week, ketamine therapy company Mindbloom will begin offering doses of mail-order, injectable ketamine. For years, the company has offered sublingual ketamine to its clients via the mail, if a telehealth visit with a prescribing physician determines that they are a good candidate for ketamine therapy. During ketamine sessions, clients are required to have an adult at home who serves as a “peer treatment monitor” and can communicate with a Mindbloom representative if necessary. The process will be similar for mail-order injectable ketamine, and clients will receive guidance from a clinician about how to inject the drug into their abdominal skin.
Mindbloom’s Chief Strategy Officer Michael Petegorsky told The Microdose that over the last year, the company has piloted its ketamine for injection and found that clients who tried both injection and sublingual dosing liked the injection route better. He says that with sublingual tablets, there can be variability in how much ketamine is absorbed by the body, which affects session intensity. Some clients also didn’t like the taste. “We know sending ketamine and needles through the mail will raise some eyebrows, but it’s a game-changer for depression, anxiety, and PTSD,” he said.
Research suggests ketamine therapy can help people with mental health issues, and some clinicians say at-home treatment may be cheaper than clinic visits and more convenient for those who live far from clinics. But some clinicians have raised concerns that at-home treatment doesn’t provide adequate safety monitoring and oversight, and that treatment can lead to addiction issues. Ketamine specialist Raquel Bennett previously advocated for the ability of carefully selected patients to be eligible to receive at-home injectable ketamine if appropriately monitored, but she’s revised her position due to what she sees as an “enormous risk of excessive use and abuse.” “There is nothing inherently wrong with injectable medications,” she told The Microdose, giving epinephrine and insulin as examples. But, she says, “the use of injectable ketamine at home, without skilled direct supervision, is problematic because of the massive potential for psychological difficulties, accidents, misuse and abuse. I am extremely concerned about the tidal wave of cystitis (bladder dysfunction) that is moving toward us because of excessive ketamine exposure.” A 2023 report compiled by a substance use disorder treatment company found that more than half of all respondents who tried at-home ketamine reported “accidentally or purposefully” using more ketamine than recommended by their supervising clinician.
New year, new legislation
In New York, State Senator Nathalia Fernandez (D) introduced Senate Bill 495, which would allow registered facilitators, like physicians and mental health counselors, to administer psilocybin to clients without threat of criminal charges or disciplinary charges from professional licensing boards. If passed, the bill would be a departure from Oregon and Colorado’s programs, which currently only allow clients to receive psilocybin in licensed centers (though exceptions are pending in Colorado); SB495 allows administration in clients’ homes as well. Fernandez filed a similar bill in 2023, which died in committee.
The city council of Tacoma, Washington is considering a resolution proposed by a councilmember that would declare the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of people using, possessing, growing, transporting, or distributing entheogenic plants or fungi as the lowest law enforcement priority. Joe Bushnell, the council member who put forth the resolution, requests that the council vote on the resolution by the end of the month.
Probing cognitive consequences of HPPD
Psychedelic users can experience a range of adverse effects during a trip, but some people experience symptoms days, weeks, or even years after. Scientists are still trying to understand a condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), which can include visual disturbances such as static or snow and tracers long after the substances have cleared the body. One woman with HPPD described it like being “stuck in a nightmare.” HPPD can affect people’s day to day functioning and lead to mental health issues. Some, however, report that they have gotten used to the symptoms.
A new study, published in Scientific Reports, investigates how HPPD might affect cognitive functioning. The researchers, all affiliated with the Charité — Berlin University Medicine Hospital in Germany, measured participants’ scores on a range of standard cognitive tests that probed their verbal and numerical memory, processing speed, attention, and other skills. That included eight patients experiencing HPPD, as well as two sets of 8 people who do not have the condition to serve as two control groups. One of those control groups reported using psychedelics throughout their lifetime, while the other had never tried them.
Overall, the researchers found that people with HPPD score within the normal range on most tests, but several individuals had below-average scores on a visual memory test, a card-matching task, and a cognitive flexibility task. However, when comparing test scores from the HPPD group to the control groups, there were no significant differences; with such small groups, differences would need to be quite large and consistent to produce significant results. Overall, the researchers write, “the pattern of visual and executive deficits seen in individual HPPD patients could provide impetus for a more focused investigation.”
Shortly before the holiday season, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published a bulletin clarifying that the Amanita muscaria mushroom and the compounds it contains are not authorized for use in food, reports NPR’s Will Stone. Earlier this year, the mushroom had come under fire after people were poisoned by chocolates and gummies sold as Diamond Shruumz, which contained muscimol, the active ingredient in the Amanita mushroom. But there is not yet definitive evidence that muscimol or other compounds found in Amanita were behind those poisonings, Stone reports.
This month, The American Journal of Psychiatry published a special issue all about psychedelics.
UK’s Glamour follows two young women who say ketamine helped their depression for a short period but then resulted in a mental health backslide, addiction and other serious issues, like organ damage.
For NPR, Deena Prichep reports on Muslims who are exploring how psychedelics can play a role in Islam.
Columbia University is launching a psychedelic therapy training program, housed in their School of Social Work.
Vox explores the trend of rich, powerful men publicly discussing their ayahuasca use and its growing role as a trope in film and TV.
Former Texas governor turned psychedelic advocate Rick Perry and ibogaine champion W. Bryan Hubbard recently appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss ibogaine.
Are you a print or audio journalist interested in covering psychedelics? Apply by 1/31 to The Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.
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