Mind Medicine Due Diligence report.
Hatchworks conducted due diligence on Mind Medicine, a neuropharmaceutical company. It develops, discovers and deploys psychedelic inspired medicines and therapies to help patients with depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental illness. Their treatments are based on psychedelic substances, like Psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, DMT and an Ibogaine derivative, 18-MC.
The interest in alternative psychedelic medicine has been on the rise lately. Some analysts see the industry bringing in $10.8B by 2027. Mental health is a big problem in America, with total spending on mental healthcare around $238B in 2020.
Psychedelic medicines, also known as ‘’hallucinogens’’, are a class of psychotropic substances that produce changes in perception, mood and cognitive processes of the human brain.
Since the founding of Mind Medicine in May 2019, MindMed has now raised a total of approximately $202.7M in investment capital, making it one of the leaders in the psychedelic pharma industry in its ability to finance the company’s innovative R&D, a new digital therapeutics division and a growing clinical trial pipeline.
Mind Medicine is headquartered in New York, and is listed on both the ‘’Nasdaq’’ under the symbol ‘’MNMD’’ and the Canadian stock exchange ‘’NEO’’ under the symbol ‘’MMED’’. With a current market cap of $1.2B USD and their stock price trading around $3.72 USD, Mind Medicine’s share price has risen around 834% year-to-date.
Mind Medicine was the first psychedelic pharma company to go public via an IPO, in March 2020, through a reverse takeover of ‘’Broadway Gold Mining’’. Backed by some big name individuals like Kevin O’leary and former Canopy Growth CEO, Bruce Linton, who currently sits as independent director on Mind Medicine’s board. Other big investors like BlackRock and Credit Suisse Asset Management are also shareholders of the company.
So far, Mind Medicine (MNMD) isn’t generating any revenues nor any profits. They’re currently in the midst of multiple clinical trials as shown on the image below. Lots of its clinical trials are in Phase 2A which indicates that it could potentially still take several more years before the drug could be approved.
If we take a look at Mind Medicine’s latest financial results, they reported a total operational loss of around $35.4M USD in 2020. However, as of March 2021 it maintains a current cash balance of $162M after closing a private placement offering deal, where they raised an additional $15.4M USD. This cash position may give Mind Medicine (MNMD) some years in runway, but as the company continue to grow, their cash burn might increase over time.
Certain key projects that are still in Phase 2 trial are:
Project Layla: Investigating 18-MC as a potential treatment for opioid addiction. This project is currently in Phase 2a.
Project Lucy: Addressing Anxiety with LSD assisted Therapy. It’s a hallucinogenic dose of LSD to treat anxiety, administered by a therapist. This project will soon be in Phase 2b.
Project Flow: LSD micro dosing in order to treat ADHD adults. Currently in phase 2a.
It’s worth noting that Mind Medicine (MNMD) has filed two separate patent applications for its technologies that will screen and optimize the dosing of MDMA and LSD.
For readers that are new to the biotech sector, any biotech company must go through all these phases after they’ve passed the discovery/pre-clinical stage.
Phase 1: Trial in humans; the drug will be tested in healthy subjects, to evaluate the safety and tolerance of the drug.
Duration: Several months.
Phase 2A-B: If the drug is shown to be safe, patients that are having health issues will be tested to see how efficient the drug is and what the side effects might be.
Duration: Several months to 2 years.
Phase 3: The drug will be tested in a larger group of patients to see how efficient the drug is. It’ll also compare the results with current approved treatments.
Duration: 1–4 years.
Most likely after Phase 3, the drug can then be taken to regulatory bodies for approval (FDA), which is another very long process where there is a higher probability that certain biotech companies will have to study the drug more in depth, to proof the drug is working well.
Phase 4: After a new treatment is approved by the FDA, the biotech company may want to continue monitoring patients to learn more about the treatment’s long-term effects, while comparing it against other already approved options.
Recent news shows that in February 2021 Mind Medicine (MNMD) closed an acquisition of HealthMode, a digital medicine and therapeutics start-up that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled digital measurement to increase the precision and speed of clinical research and patient monitoring.
Also, the former CEO, J.R. Rahn, has stepped down and Robert Barrow - Chief Development Officer (CDO) - will take the role as interim CEO. Rahn stated that Mind Medicine (MNMD) requires a leader better equipped to pursue late stage clinical trials and solve regulatory hurdles.
For now Hatchworks’ stance is an informational brief. Since none of Mind Medicine’s major projects have yet generated any revenue or profits, and given its current valuation along with early stage and thematic appeal, Hatchworks will keep Mind Medicine on its radar.
What is Mind Medicine?
Mind Medicine is a neuropharmaceutical company. It develops, discovers and deploys psychedelic inspired medicines and therapies to help patients with depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental illness. Their treatments are based on psychedelic substances, like: Psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, DMT and an Ibogaine derivative, 18-MC.
Investors:
- BlackRock.
- Kevin O’leary.
- Bruce Linton.
- Credit Suisse Asset Management.
- Mirae Asset Global Investments Co., Ltd.
What are the risks?
- The psychedelic market still faces considerable risk and uncertainties around securing U.S. FDA approvals and the stigma associated with the use of psychedelic drugs.
- Mind Medicine’s unprofitability and increasing operational losses might affect its growth prospects.
- The success rates of Phase 2 trials in Psychopharmacology are 24%. There might be a chance that none of Mind Medicine’s leading projects may pass.
Competitors:
- ATAI Life Sciences. (ATAI).
- Field Trip Psychedelics Inc. (FTRP)
- Compass Pathaways. (CMPS)
Management team:
- Robert Barrow: CEO.
- David D. Guebert: CFO.
- Donald R. Gehlert: CSO.
- Bradford Cross: CTO.
The Hatchworks Team
Legal Disclaimer — This report summary has been generated as a result of Hatchworks’ proprietary company vetting and filtering system. The level of due diligence conducted on investible assets conducted ranges from mediocre to significant, the latter being the case where Hatchworks has explicitly taken strategic positions in. By no means is the information in this file to be relied on as investment advice; this includes Hatchworks’ algorithmic composite score known as ‘Hatchscore’. Hatchworks has not received any compensation for this research. For more information you can reach us at info@hatchworksvc.com. This report is not for distribution in the United States of America. It is closed to U.S citizens. If you are a U.S. citizen, you should delete this report or return to sender.
