Featured Founder: Gilgamesh Founder and CEO Jonathan Sporn
Prime Movers Lab spoke to Gilgamesh Founder and CEO Jonathan Sporn this month about the future of novel psychoactive treatments and why there has been such a dramatic cultural acceptance of psychedelics in recent years. Here are the highlights from the conversation.
What inspired you to found Gilgamesh?
It was the realization that psychedelic drugs used in the right way can truly ‘change your mind’ and that the first movers in the area like Compass Pathways were starting with existing molecules that might work but lacked innovation and strong IP needed to partner the drugs with big pharma. At Gilgamesh, we want to create a platform to allow us to generate vast numbers of novel compounds that are differentiated and can be paired well with behavioral therapies.
Can you explain the impact that Gilgamesh’s novel medicines could have on people suffering from mental health problems?
We expect these novel therapeutics will allow us to — in a few doses, with the right preparation and integration work — move beyond symptomatic treatment and potentially cure or greatly alter the course of illness for many mental disorders like depression, anxiety, OCD, substance use disorders, and PTSD.
Why are we starting to see cultural acceptance of psychedelics in the past few years?
As many people know, psychedelic drugs for political reasons were banned (even research was banned) for decades (starting around 1970). It was only with the pioneering work of people like Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins, and Rick Doblin at MAPS that psychedelic research was allowed to restart. It was also due to the fact that there was a continuous underground of people doing psychedelics and people like Sasha Shulgin (a medicinal chemist) who designed and personally tried new medicines in this area despite being raided by the DEA that the field was kept alive and many people experienced the power of these molecules.
Thus, many individuals who had experience with psychedelics in the early days are still around and intuitively understand how therapeutic and powerful these compounds are and how limited our standard of care medicines like the SSRIs are for treating these conditions (only slightly better than placebo in many cases). It is also the case that the US FDA was open to these novel therapeutic and green-lighted studies of them after realizing how limited the pipeline is for novel medicines. I think what happened with cannabis also opened people’s minds to the idea that psychedelic-related molecules may have a therapeutic use even though what has happened with cannabis is also a cautionary tale in that not much research has been done around cannabis (cannabis at high doses is one of the first psychedelic drugs experienced by the west). We see the story working out differently with psychedelics where research is leading the way toward having FDA-approved therapeutics.
What was the least expected challenge you’ve overcome to reach this point?
I think the least expected challenge has been that we must be very thoughtful about what drugs we develop as we have so many ideas and options within Gilgamesh along with so many biomarker ideas that we cannot do everything!
Who inspires you?
I am inspired by my cofounders and colleagues at Gilgamesh who are so dedicated to making new treatments see the light of day. I am also inspired by Sasha Shulgin who made and personally tested over 300 novel compounds. Rick Doblin and Rolland Griffiths along with Robin Carhartt-Harris who are pioneers in the field that inspire me. I am also inspired by my mentor and analyst, Phil Holzman Ph.D. who pushed me to do more than just see patients.
Have you read anything lately that inspired you?
I recently read “The Man from the Future” about the greatest mind of the 20th Century — John von Neumann, “How to Change Your Mind” about psychedelics, and “The Brain in Search of Itself” about the great pioneer of the nervous system who developed the concept of the neuron: Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
Where do you see novel psychoactive treatments heading in the next 5 years? 10 years?
In the next 5 years, we should see first-generation psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin hit the market, and in 10 years, the Gilgamesh novel psychedelics should be on the market. We should also witness a change in how mental healthcare is delivered with the advent of psychedelic-related rapid-acting neuroplastic drugs that can have disease-modifying effects and integrative behavioral methods some of which will be delivered digitally and some of which will be delivered by therapists. This will radically change the efficacy of both the biological treatments we have available and will make psychotherapy much more effective since the drugs make the brain much more neuroplastic and open to new experiences.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
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