Sam Wood, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Jason Wallach has a vision. He sees Philadelphia becoming a center for psychedelic studies. From his laboratory at the University of the Sciences, Wallach is leading a network of national researchers delving into the mind-altering substances.
In August, Wallach paired with Compass Pathways, the mental health company backed by entrepreneur Peter Thiel, a founder of Paypal and Palantir Technologies.
Compass gave the researcher $500,000 to launch a Drug Discovery Center in West Philadelphia to investigate “new serotonergic compounds.” These substances work on a specific neuroreceptor in the brain, 5-HT2A,and include the active ingredients in psilocybin, DMT, mescaline, ibogaine and LSD.
Last week, Compass (NASDAQ: CMPS) announced it is building on its Wallach-led project to include researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW).
Compass appears to be introducing a new model for psychedelic research, where multiple physical locations collaborate on the same research projects together. Rather than thinking of this new Drug Discovery Center as being based in Philadelphia with satellite research centers in San Diego and Wisconsin, it seems like it’s more accurate to consider it as one single research center that is distributed across multiple locations virtually.