I believe that atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ: ATAI), the mental health company I have founded in 2018, is the biggest entrepreneurial opportunity I have ever encountered. I truly believe this company has an incredible future and is well-positioned to make a huge, positive, and meaningful difference to one of humanity’s major challenges – the escalating mental health crisis.

While I know I will not sell any of my atai shares – which I hold via my family office and investment firm, Apeiron Investment Group – for a very long time anyway, I realize that the end of the IPO lock-up period this week might trigger some queries from fellow shareholders.

Extension of my lock-up for another 24 months

So, I thought I’d show my hand and do so publicly and in writing:

As of today, my family office, Apeiron Investment Group, has decided to voluntarily extend the lock up for ALL of our shares we had pre-IPO for another 24 months, subject to limited exceptions. These shares represent roughly 17.4% of atai’s outstanding common shares.

In addition, I am very happy to announce that other of atai’s largest Pre-IPO investors have similarly signed voluntary lock up agreements, in their case for an additional 12 months each, subject to limited exceptions.

In aggregate, these renewed lock-up agreements represent more than 30% of atai’s outstanding common shares.

This is a substantial show of support by multiple of atai’s leading shareholders, I’m sure you’ll agree, and I couldn’t be prouder.

Please read the news HERE.

The bigger picture

In my opinion, atai, although already valued at approx. $2 billion, has to date only unfolded a fraction of its ultimate value creation potential. I truly believe that, in the years to follow, we can achieve a lot more.

My trust and conviction are first and foremost based on my confidence that atai currently constitutes one of the best teams in CNS drug development and company building. My Co-founders Florian Brand and Srinivas Rao, our CMO Rolando Gutiérrez-Esteinou, our CFO Greg Weaver and the entire atai team of more than 100 people, have been relentlessly building the company with passion, dedication and especially a driving sense of urgency since our foundation in 2018.

In 2021, atai has achieved many major milestones, for example the promising phase 2a data for its schizophrenia drug RL-007 or the Phase 2b readout of Compass Pathways, of which atai owns 22.6% as of its last public filing.

As we move into 2022, 10 milestones are anticipated to happen within the existing pipeline alone. And I’m not talking about additional business development opportunities but just the existing drug development programs.

Important to know: For ALL the compounds within atai’s pipeline, we have prior human use and/or anecdotal evidence. Either former medical use – like psilocybin – or because many people have found healing in traditional rituals, with the original flora and fungi, which have been underway for thousands of years. Which is what makes this so different to other standard biotech companies and personally gives me such confidence in atai’s future success. We do know the history and profile of these compounds. We “just” – and don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of work in front of us – need to turn this anecdotal evidence into robustly-assessed trial results that permit FDA approval.

The macro picture driving the value and potential of atai and the entire mental health and CNS sector

1)    Market size

We all regularly quote the shocking “1 billion people suffer worldwide from mental health issues” statistic. Unfortunately, though, I believe this number is understated and the real number is way higher, for 3 reasons:

• This is a pre COVID-19 figure. I expect, and early indications suggest, that COVID-19 has substantially worsened the global mental health situation, though it will take more time for accurate global figures to be compiled and reported.
• Mental health issues continue to be stigmatized. Not everybody who needs help is coming forward to be diagnosed and treated. Many still suffer in silence. This is gradually changing, and great work is underway to reduce such stigma; as it does, I believe the number of diagnoses will increase substantially.
• In general, I firmly believe the world we are building is not good for our mental health. Constant change, misuse of social media, constant over-stimulation – all this is totally toxic for our brain and taking its toll on us all.

My personal, sad belief is that the number of patients globally living with mental health conditions will meaningfully continue to increase in the years to come. However, I’m also confident that atai is holding the key to help solve the crisis.

2)    Potential market share

Most equity research analysts in their respective models use a market share for each respective indication for most of atai’s compounds – once approved – just in the single digit percentage range. Looking at the history of anecdotal psychedelic experiences though, my personal expectation is that, once approved, psychedelics have a real potential to achieve a meaningfully larger market share. I personally know so many people who have already found healing in psychedelics – and all have since become an advocate. Some have simply shared their stories only in their own private circles, but others, like Lars Wilde, co-founder of COMPASS and atai, have done so very publicly.

Quite simply, I never have met anybody who benefitted by psychedelics who does not want to talk about it and extol its potential to others. Based on these personal experiences, I believe that, once approved, the market penetration will be way quicker than what’s being conservatively estimated, driven by word of mouth, personal testimonies and a passionate “patients turned ambassadors” movement, all of course within the appropriate medical regulation and oversight.

3)    Patents

I fully recognise and respect sensitivities here, but I do need to be clear that I am very proud that atai and COMPASS Pathways (of which atai owns 22.6% as of its last public filing) have been so diligent in mapping out the landscape of psychedelics for medical use and, where appropriate, securing the necessary patents, intellectual property (IP) and data exclusivity steps to do so.

Patents and IP are a critical pillar of research and development and the ability to bring any promising new drug to market, and psychedelics are no exception. Patents foster innovation, and innovation benefits patients in need.

In my opinion, atai and COMPASS together are the clear market leaders.

Is it possible that we forgot some niches here and there? Possible. Are the niches big? I don’t think so. And, as we have proven with the acquisition of IntelGenx, we continue to build and strengthen as we go, using our strong balance sheet and our entrepreneurial agility to identify further areas that have the potential to optimise our platform and future offerings.

4)    Digital & Data

While for many investors atai’s digital therapeutics are a mere adjunct to our compounds, we have a bold vison of owning the entire mental health journey. Access, scalability, remote support and the tracking of (digital) biomarkers to optimise treatment response – just a few of the areas our innovative enabling technologies will serve.

The overarching vision, in my opinion, is that atai will first and foremost help people in their efforts to stay mentally healthy, while developing a broad set of therapeutics to help bring relief and healing for those who suffer from a mental health issue.

It is imperative to me to be in this journey for the long run

I truly believe that atai Life Sciences is one of these rare companies where the stars are aligned: the mission, the strategy, the execution, and the macro-environment. As you can tell, I couldn’t be more excited about atai’s future and its potential to play a vital role in solving one of humanities biggest challenges.

As a personal matter, it is imperative to me to be in this journey for the long run, to leave this world better and to serve a meaningful role in bringing healing and relief to the millions and millions of people currently suffering; I refuse to disappoint them.