Psychedelic Capital Podcast

 S1 E3 Transcript

Ross O'Brien 0:16

Welcome to the Psychedelic Capital Podcast, where we go beyond the headlines in this emerging world of psychedelics venture capital. Join us for in depth interviews with the leading investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers pioneering a new future in healthcare. I'm your host, Ross O'Brien, founder of venture capital firm Bonaventure Equity, author and lifelong entrepreneur. And as an early investor in this new frontier, it's my goal to share with you the conversations that we are having on an ongoing basis with the thought leaders and pioneers at this defining moment. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, an addiction crisis. Pain is an epidemic. And for the first time, we now have the legal pathways to develop psychedelic science and bring a new paradigm in medicine to the patients who need it most. As we imagine this new future, I'm inspired every day by these visionaries and have the privilege of introducing them to you. So today my guests are two partners at Goodwin Proctor, my friend and colleague Jennifer Fisher and her partner, Bill Browner. Jennifer, Bill, awesome to have you here today. Tell the folks a little bit about yourselves.

Jennifer Fischer 1:26

All right. Thanks, Ross. We're excited to be here. Thanks for having us. And we're excited for this discussion today. As you mentioned, my name is Jennifer Fisher and I'm a partner in the San Francisco office of Goodwin Proctor. Bill and I also co chair our cannabis practice. And I've really focused the larger part of my practice in the last eight years or so on focusing on the cannabis industry in particular, but also really looking at regulatory and legal changes in the law with respect to substances that are controlled, advising companies in the space, working with regulators on solutions and also working with investors who are looking at Cannabinoids in general and operators in different kinds of verticals and thinking through their business strategies and providing regulatory compliance advice and counseling and also representing companies involved in litigation. So I represent companies in government investigations, civil litigation, and disputes generally. And many of those companies are involved in industries where there's novel areas of law that are being litigated for the first time, particularly with respect to controlled substances. So it's really exciting practice for me. I love it. I love the innovators and entrepreneurs we get to work with every day. And I love tackling really the tough legal challenges that are presented to us by companies who want to work in this space.

Bill Growney 3:02

So that's me, Bill Growney, and I am a partner in the tech practice group here on the transactional corporate side at Goodwin Proctor. My practice is representing both companies and investors generally in that it's a lifecycle practice, but with a particular focus on emerging companies all the way from formation through unicorn status and beyond. And so I would say half of my practice, a little more than half is on the tech side, and then a substantial part of it is this cannabis practice, which emerged for me about, I want to say, six or seven years ago. And since then that has brought some opportunities in the, in the psychedelic space as well. So mine is a little more of a little more mundane practice than Jen's and then I focus on getting financing done in formations and the same types of issues that really any company has that said, you know, cannabis and psychedelics introduce, you know, some more unique challenges than, than your standard run of the mill tech company.

Ross O'Brien 4:15

And well, I guess I, I would say in the last few years cannabis and psychedelics are anything but boring and sort of right down the fairway, right? So that's a lot. So one of the things we do that's a little bit fun on the podcast is we jump in with some unscripted thinking. We like to expand our thinking. It's a little bit of play on the whole psychedelic space too. And we use the oblique strategies cards, I personally love them. It's the producer, Brian Eno, use them in the studio to encourage some expanded thinking and get out of writer blocks and things. So off the cuff, guys, if I throw this out, the card is don't be frightened of cliches. What does that make you think of?

Jennifer Fischer 4:59

Oh, I love this, this is a fun way to get started. So don't be frightened of cliches. Well, I think as lawyers, people look at us as like in a cliche sense of people who are there to tell you no or to put guardrails around what you want to do. And I really think about it as the opposite. When I'm thinking through problem solving with my clients, I want to get to not you can't do this, but how can you do this? How can we think creatively? And especially when we're thinking about emerging companies in spaces that are cutting edge but also unknown to people. And there's lots of cliches around people who think about the days where they used magic mushrooms when they went to a light show in high school or something, or college, or smoked pot. And now we're thinking about these industries as cutting edge medical and life sciences companies who are creating opportunities for real growth and the potential to address some of the things you talked about at the beginning of the podcast. Just pain being an epidemic, mental health crippling so many people and really opening the door to the potential and the possibilities presented by psychedelics from a therapeutic and medical perspective. And I think the companies that are operating in this space, that's how they look at it. And for lawyers who are advising them, that's how we really look at it is how can we help you move beyond the Cliches and into educating people and opening doors for real opportunities to help people and to provide real benefits for people's life and health and wellness. And to get there, we have to get really creative and move beyond some of the Cliches that are so sort of accepted about what lawyers do and lawyers being seen as people who get in the way of things. We want to be seen as people who really help people get on the path they want to go down and do it the right way and be really smart and strategic about it right from day one.

Ross O'Brien 7:15

So we want to inoculate the cliche of get rich quick.

Jennifer Fischer 7:19

Right.

Ross O'Brien 7:20

That's one of the things that at all venture is by design, get rich slow. Bill, is that cliche of the attorney's role resonating with you as well?

Bill Growney 7:31

Yeah, I mean, look, I've been in house and I've been at a firm, and in house, you get a lot of people that a lot of your colleagues aren't afraid to tell you that your desk is where deals go to die. You're standing in the way of progress and everything else. I think that is true. I think it's possible for people to get sort of in a rut or stuck in a particular way of doing things. The thing I've always liked about the firm, and I was a client of this firm before I became a partner here was that there was a certain pragmatism and a solution orientation that I liked. It wasn't just about scoring points. And there's something to be said for thinking outside the box, to quote another overly used cliche. But I also think, like, look, when you said, don't be afraid of cliches, I took that to mean it's okay to run with the herd. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. And if there's something that firms or attorneys are good at, it's pattern recognition and kind of just being a little more agnostic and saying, like, look, this is kind of how these things are done, and they're done that way for a reason. They just didn't come into being. Now, I think there's a problem if you can too rigidly hold on to that. And I've heard attorneys here and elsewhere tell clients, no, you can't do that. Well, yeah, you probably can do it. Should you do it? Maybe it's the right question, right. But there's attorneys, and you got to guard yourself against that. I have to do that on a daily basis. When a client wants to do something that's not how I've done it 99 times, I got to at least think about it, and the answer probably is no, you should stick with the 99 times way of doing things, but every situation is slightly different.

Ross O'Brien 9:39

The paradox of innovation, though, right? The great innovators, the great change that I've seen on the business side usually come from people that have a really solid base of experience that they're coming from, as opposed to just coming fresh at the entire conversation. Right. So I remember a time and I mean, Jen, we've met years ago and there was a time when law firms weren't even open for business if you said the word cannabis, right? So from your guys perspectives, how did that sort of migration happen? Because I love this, I think bringing a functional discipline. We used to say jet of the conferences we go to. Jen didn't say this, but I would. Most of the people, just because you love cannabis doesn't mean you get a free pass on business, right? Like the rules still apply. You have to manage cash flow, you have to pay your taxes. But if you have those baseline concepts in place now, you can bring them and sort of push the frontier, right? So how do you think about that in your practice? What was it like to sort of have some of those initial conversations and are the same things happening in psychedelics of like, hey, are we open for business? First of all, to this arena, for.

Bill Growney 10:45

Me, I came from being in house and so when I first started here, I had like no clients and so I was just much hungrier and more willing to take risks than a lot of my other colleagues. And so when a cannabis opportunity came and the firm, by the way, probably at that time was not as fully on board with it as it is now. And it was one of the first I mean, the firm is amazingly supportive and aggressive in terms of new opportunities, but there are limits to that. But for me there wasn't. And so I just needed clients and I was willing to take on cannabis deals when no one else would. And then what would happen is then as the firm started to relax its stance on cannabis companies, when opportunities came in, someone would say, well, I think Growney did one of those deals. And so I started getting more and more of them as it became more acceptable to do so. And so that's kind of how I stumbled into it. And when we first started, like I said six or seven years ago, the people that were running these companies were just the people that sold drugs in high school or had been growing illegally for many years. And so while I was used to working with startup entrepreneurs that were relatively unsophisticated in financing and corporate governance and whatnot, these folks were even more so unsophisticated because they weren't even coming from companies like a Google and spinning out and doing their own thing. They were coming from the shadows in many cases. And so a lot of times they'd be starting companies with no paperwork, with nothing, which in many ways is okay because a blank slate is better than if they had been doing everything the wrong way and then you got to go back and sort of fix it. But it was kind of a challenge. Now as that industry has matured and more sophisticated financial and legal and operational folks have come into the market. There's simply just a lot less of that.

Jennifer Fischer 12:55

I think for me my involvement in campus was probably a little bit more intentional. I had always represented companies in highly regulated spaces, that's where I like to live. I think there's really interesting partnerships that lawyers can have with their clients when they're navigating a regulated industry with lots of potential pitfalls and it really just breeds a relationship of trust and I've always really enjoyed that piece of it. I looked at the cannabis industry at the time and thought there were real opportunities there. I was also really interested in actually the health and wellness aspect of it and I thought it was an industry that was going to be a lot more open and diverse to different viewpoints and different people from different backgrounds. And I liked the idea of working in that kind of space. And it was brand new. And there were lots of legal questions and problems that people came to me with where there were no real answers. And especially probably different than bills work, setting up companies and going through financings where there's lots of precedents, but there's some nuances that are applicable to cannabis and psychedelics. You're interacting with government regulators or you're litigating or you're trying to navigate regulatory compliance questions and there's no roadmap for that. You can rely on your experience from other industries but it really presents immune problems. I really liked that. That was very attractive to me. I wanted to be in that space. I'm probably less risk averse than many lawyers just in terms of wanting to kind of roll up my sleeves and think about a problem in a way that's never been thought about before. So I like that and that's sort of what I thought out in this space. But yes, Goodwin was the first of the large US law firms and still one of the very few that are open to working with companies and investors looking at both cannabis and psychedelics. And I think it has a lot to do with the entrepreneurial spirit that our firm has and the openness to pursuing opportunities and to letting partners like me and Bill run with these kind of opportunities that are coming to us or that we're seeking out. And I think that's why it makes good one such an exciting place to be and a great place to practice law. But yes, there were challenges and those challenges still remain. I mean I think even when people think about psychedelics there's probably in some ways even more stigma there than there was with cannabis. I think cannabis is sort of more widely accepted, it's more known, it's more familiar to people. Psychedelics seem a lot scarier and that's just another example of stigmas that I think a lot of people in the industry are trying to break down and break through because there's so much possibility with respect to Psilocybin in particular, that I think it's really exciting.

Ross O'Brien 16:05

So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I hope it's coming across. The thing that I enjoy about working with you all and looking at it from the entrepreneur's perspective and from the investors perspective, is that it seems to me that the role of the attorney that has traditionally been a little more transactional is a lot more strategic now. Right. When you're looking at these new environments with a lot of moving parts and a lot of different regulations at state level, federal level, et cetera, there's a lot more considerations sort of earlier on in helping define strategy. I certainly think that's coming across the conversation, that there are a lot of perspectives and even just baseline definitions that we need to all align on. So I want to get back to the perspectives on psychedelics, but let's step back for a moment and one of the things that I think will lead us there is really just defining core terms, right? So one of the things that I've observed in the marketplace, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is a very liberal use of the word medicine. Right? So how do you think about medicinal versus medicine versus recreational? And what are some of the similarities and differences between cannabis and psychedelics?

Jennifer Fischer 17:20

Then?

Ross O'Brien 17:20

We'll really dig in on the psychedelic side.

Jennifer Fischer 17:22

Yeah, I think the use of terminology is really important. I think when you think of medical use, the accepted medical use, which is kind of a legal term, particularly when you're talking about scheduling, that usually implies a more formulaic look at have there been clinical trials conducted? Have those clinical trials evidenced health benefits? What are those health benefits? Who should have access to those medicines? Who regulates medical use? Whereas when I think about medicinal, medicinal to me at least has a much broader definition of anything that people use to make them feel better. I think about as medicinal.

Ross O'Brien 18:13

I was having this conversation with someone just yesterday saying that if I don't feel well and have the flu, a bowl of chicken noodle soup can really help me. Right. But is soup medicine?

Jennifer Fischer 18:24

Right? I think medicinal really means anything that makes you feel better. That's how I think of it. Or promotes your wellness, your well being. And there's so many different ways to think about that, which I think is really interesting. When we're thinking about cannabis, a lot of people talk about recreational use. I really always try and use the terminology adult use because there's a lot of I think there needs to be a constant sort of affirmation of the fact that we really only want cannabis to be available to adults and also that adults use it for many more reasons than just pure recreation. And so I think adult use just sort of captures consumers like me that use cannabis really for medicinal purposes, but without a medical ID card. And I think what's interesting for I think in the community there's a lot of this discussion too. From a legal perspective, people consider decriminalization the first step towards legalization, but I think that's really just taking away the criminal punishment for possessing certain psychedelics and that's really like from a legal perspective that's a very far we're still far away from. People think that's just a slippery slope to legalizing all psychedelics for recreational use without understanding that there's a lot of steps in between those two and that in the psychedelic space we may never see the types of state legal markets we see in cannabis that are regulated from seed to sale. Lots of different industry verticals and I think that industry as it develops will look different.

Ross O'Brien 20:14

So these are powerful molecules, right? We know that psychedelics, let's really focus on that. But coming from a healthcare background, I mean, controlled substances play a role in healthcare across the board, right? And I had this conversation the other day with somebody saying, oh, I'm not sure, I said, would you invest in a morphine company? Right? Morphine is a controlled substance and it has a role. So to us it's not about the legalization or blanket access topic. Now I know you're right out in front of this. So before we get into some of the things you're actually doing today on this front, how do you think about the role that psychedelics could or should be playing more broadly in healthcare?

Jennifer Fischer 20:58

Right, well the way I think about it is really at this point in time, the health care system, that's really where I think the exploration of the benefits of psychedelics has to happen there's. Various forms of psychedelics have been used in many communities for many years, particularly psilocybin, and we've written about that sort of like the historical use of some of these psychedelic substances, particularly that come from plants. And I think like you said, they're powerful molecules and how people use them in a way that benefits them and where you can see real breakthroughs in treatment, particularly for some of the more serious mental health disorders, major depressive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, things that are very debilitating for people. But where psychedelics have shown real promise in treatment, I think that needs to be looked at really carefully. And in a healthcare setting where people are researching it and doing physician assisted therapy, I think that's going to be really important as we're still exploring things like dosage and how often and how much and who should receive these kinds of treatments and how they might help them. I think it has to be in a clinical research healthcare kind of setting so we can learn more about it and really unleash the opportunities without setting the whole industry back by going too fast too soon.

Ross O'Brien 22:37

And Bill, this feels a little bit like what we were just talking about a minute ago with sort of the base from a transactional standpoint, right? So there are a base set of tools and there's generally a toolbox you can bring to any series A, series B, M and A IPO. Right. In those environments, when you layer in in the healthcare world, there's usually standard inflection points and Jen, I am in total agreement with what you're saying is there are precedents for this. Right? So there is a general scientific rigor that is accepted to take new molecules through to the FDA. Right. There is a general accepted, like you need to have PhDs and do clinical trials and have research institutes and have funding for that. Right. So Bill, when you think about those sort of incumbent structures, where are we today from your perspective and how are companies from a formation standpoint or transactional standpoint anticipating the next few bounces of the ball when it comes to the regulations moving in that direction?

Bill Growney 23:40

Yeah, it's a great question and most of my clients on the psychedelic side have been more on the investor side and they've been more early stage.

Bill Growney 23:57

Going back earlier to what I was saying about pattern recognition and the one thing that we do do a good job at as attorneys, I've noticed that all of the psychedelic companies that we're touching either directly as company council or as investor council, are all more in the wellness and treatment and medicinal stage. They're all in that market and it's a heavily regulated one. None of them are coming from the same sort of legal ambiguity that the cannabis companies had where it was like federally illegal, but the state was okay and we were like, okay, I think they're probably going to be okay. From a practical matter here on the psychedelic side, they're all toeing the line and that requires knowledge of what those rules are and what needs to happen in order to get your product to market. Whether you're just growing mushrooms to sell on a B to B basis or whether you're actually treating people in a clinical setting, you need to be aware of where those rules are. And as far as I know, all of those clients intend to ultimately be within that sort of regulatory compliant world. And because it's a new industry, relatively speaking, and because institutional investment at a seed stage is even newer, as part of that, most of these deals that we've been doing are the seed stage and the safe convertible note financing in the few millions of dollars, so not enough money to see this thing all the way through. So a lot of the clients we've been working with are at the earlier stages of that and are generally pretty sophisticated in terms of what needs to happen. It's not like they need a complete education on the subject from RPA.

Jennifer Fischer 26:10

Definitely.

Bill Brownie 26:11

Add value and ask questions and say, well, this is not likely to happen for you on this time frame that you want. Or here's what we're seeing from other companies that are one face shift ahead of you in the process, but it's a different group of people starting these companies.

Ross O'Brien 26:30

That's a great point, Bill. And we've talked a lot, we've all talked a little bit about sort of acumen and things and in particular in the startup world, in these markets, from our standpoint, we always look at it like I've been doing seed healthcare investing for 15 years. Right. Forget that it's cannabis or psychedelics. Like there is a baseline that you need to have a baseline expectation and then it also happens to be in this new frontier that's yet to be defined. Right. And if we can't check those boxes in the first tier, there's no point in even having the conversation around sort of where things could go. And Bill, you brought up sort of the rules and we've mentioned controlled substances. And I'd like to get into the two of you are working on some pretty heavy, a very important bit of litigation right now related to psychedelics, the legality of psychedelics. So when we think about the rules and then saying, okay, what do the rules say? And do the rules need to be adapted? Right. Kind of how do you get there? And let's also just go through specifically what is the debate that's happening and how are you approaching this?

Jennifer Fischer 27:39

Yeah, so I think what's really interesting for us to think about is just when you're talking about medical benefits of drugs that are considered controlled substances, like what does that mean? And it turns into a chicken and the egg problem. Right. Because if you're on Schedule One, if a drug is listed as a Schedule One substance, it means it has a high potential for abuse with no currently accepted medical use. So those are the two defining characteristics of a Schedule One drug. So that's where you find marijuana and Psilocybin, for example, including MDMA is also an LSD, are also all Schedule One drugs. So what does that mean? Obviously cannabis. 37 states have legalized cannabis specifically for medical use. So there's obviously a huge contradiction there and enough doctors and patients in those states have adopted cannabis for medical use.

Ross O'Brien 28:37

Doesn't the approval of Epidiolex impact this?

Jennifer Fischer 28:41

Yeah, so epidiolex has been removed from the Schedule One because it is FDA approved that's for two specific uses. That was an interesting development in terms of thinking through how cannabis and cannabinoids are scheduled, but it really didn't do anything to the status of marijuana and especially THC containing substances containing THC. So when you're looking at Schedule Two substances, they're still considered dangerous with some potential for abuse, but the difference in terms of your access. So in order to research and study a Schedule One substance, it's very cumbersome. There's so many barriers involved. And I'm sure you see this in thinking through some of your companies that are forging down. That complicated. And really the biggest problem is lengthy, path, inexpensive. Inexpensive, right. And so you have to be registered with the DEA. The lab has to be registered. There's inspections, there's paperwork, there's multiple layers of approval in order to and then there's limited availability where you can actually access the substances to conduct your research, do your drug development. If it's scheduled two, it doesn't necessarily mean that the floodgates are open for you, but it does remove some of those barriers and it makes access easier. So the litigation that we've been involved in is really kind of the third in a series of efforts by a really groundbreaking pioneer, Sunil Agarwal, who's been petitioning the DEA to consider rescheduling of psilocybin really since for years now. We got involved on behalf in this fight. So basically a petition to reschedule Psilocybin was filed. The DEA denied it without even really.

Ross O'Brien 30:49

Considering, just for people to understand the chronology here. When did that happen?

Jennifer Fischer 30:53

This was all in the past, like year or two, so and so the Dea's position was sort of circular. They took the position that they can't really consider rescheduling psilocybin until FDA gives its approval. But the FDA cannot really give its approval until there's extensive safety studies are conducted. And Psilocybin's current scheduling really makes it prohibitive for many companies in terms of time and cost to do the required extensive studies that the FDA is looking for. So really, the ask in the lawsuit is really pending before the 9th circuit remand to the DEA to direct them to initiate rulemaking proceedings. So to just open this door, this process that they have in place to consider rescheduling, particularly just down to schedule two. And sort of at bottom, what we're looking at is, does psilocybin in particular, that's the psychedelic that issue in the lawsuit have a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions. And there is we point to in our brief a lot of evidence that that standard has been met and that the DEA should consider that and open up this process where the FDA can then reach out to people who are conducting this research and evaluate some of the studies and some of the findings that have been developed. And so I think it's really interesting because I think there are some clinical studies of psilocybin assisted therapy really providing significant and lasting relief for individuals. And the focus of our brief was on individuals suffering from life threatening and terminal illnesses. And not that psilocybin itself treats the underlying illnesses, but what it can be used for is to treat some of the mental health challenges that people facing.

Ross O'Brien 32:58

Like existential demoralization.

Jennifer Fischer 33:00

Yeah, something that's really in many ways and in lots of circumstances ignored when our medical system is so focused on treating the underlying illness. But sort of what's most debilitating oftentimes for patients facing their end of life is the anxiety and depression that comes along with those diagnoses and the treatment. And they're sort of facing end of life and psilocybin assisted. Therapy has really been shown to make significant improvements in anxiety and depression, particularly with those with sort of terminal illness and facing all of the fears and anxieties that you experience when you're facing your end of life. And so I think it's really interesting from that perspective to focus on. And there's lots of people doing lots of other types of studies, but that's really where we were focused on. But I think anxiety and depression, as you said, impact so many people and.

Ross O'Brien 34:11

They'Re really and there's no treatment on the market or options for these other than talk therapy for people in these situations if you have terminal cancer. So as a practical matter, a rescheduling to Schedule Two would do what? To research. Right. And research funding.

Jennifer Fischer 34:31

Yeah, so it would remove some of the barriers I talked about that are present for Schedule One. It would increase access, which make it easier for more people to do more kinds of research, which leads to better evidence right, and more data. And I think that's really what the FDA is going to be looking for. And I think there's also, I think going back to just the beginning of our discussion, I think there's also something to be said around stigma. I think rescheduling, in addition to all the legal and sort of practical, the way Schedule Two might impact the access and ability for more research to be conducted, there's also, I think, for both physicians and researchers, like breaking down the barrier, not having to deal with a Schedule One substance. Also, there's a lot to be said about sort of breaking down the stigma associated with Schedule One substances because the premise for Schedule One is that it has no medical benefits, there's no accepted medical use, and so you're trying to prove otherwise. And I think it's an interesting question, particularly for researchers who aren't looking to open the floodgates and have anyone be able to access it. That's not really the point of work that our clients have been doing in the space. It's really being able to expand on the research that's already been done to get more clinical data to see if there's other options and opportunities that haven't yet been explored for potentially other medical benefits. There's really an opportunity there that exists for those researchers and people in the medical community to continue building on the research that has been done.

Ross O'Brien 36:25

But Jen, if we move psychedelics to Schedule Two, doesn't that mean that I can get mushrooms and chocolate bars in every circle?

Jennifer Fischer 36:31

K no, exactly.

Ross O'Brien 36:35

And that's the point, right? I think that's really the point is we certainly from our perspective and thank you for walking us through the position that you've so clearly articulated. We are seeing government funding starting to flow into really important research. I mean, DARPA funded a $26 million grant UNC Dr. Roth, who I've met with to study psychedelics in treating PTSD and veterans. So you have the Department of Defense saying, yeah, this is worth putting some meaningful dollars behind. I don't think anybody is saying though this is about the recreational aspect of usage.

Jennifer Fischer 37:17

You certainly not find that anywhere in our brief focus on the use of psilocybin in particular under medical supervision in a therapy supported approach. I mean, those are really like how our clients in the Voice, we were trying to represent that's their perspective of what we're asking for is the ability to conduct more in a way that not ensures the safety and efficacy, but where there's procedures in place that enable the patient to explore these therapies with the assistance of a physician, where adequate screening has been done well in advance, where there's a psychiatric evaluation, where the personnel conducting the training, are well trained and have received training in physician assisted psychedelic therapies, where there's a physical environment that's comfortable for the patient, where there's preparation, execution of the therapy and then follow up. I mean, there's a lot of steps involved. So this is not, this is perfect.

Ross O'Brien 38:38

Because this is exactly how we feel about the space. And the irony is from our vantage point, what we're seeing that this will actually bring into the right environment the ability to go find out the truth through the science. Right, so the more this remains as restricted as it is, the more you have amateur shaman out there trying their own in home experiments with things. Right. The irony is that the scientific community is gravitating to this because the early data is so promising. They're safe and well tolerated and have this molecule has the ability to touch a lot of different therapeutic indications from we've talked about depression and anxiety, to addiction, to sexual wellness, to anxiety. They're really broad in scope. If we don't have the existing healthcare system in support of funding, we're not going to get to the truth and we can't get to the truth without the scientific rigor behind that. So just to tie a bow on that, I really appreciate this is great. We're sort of coming to the conclusion here. I think this is really the start of hopefully part one of a follow on conversation. This has been really fun and really enjoyable. Bill and Jen, thank you both for your time. What can we expect sort of what are the next steps as people are tracking to this lawsuit that you're leading? Where are we in that? What should people be watching for?

Jennifer Fischer 40:07

Yeah, we actually represent our place in lawsuit is we represent a number of end of life patient advocacy programs and researchers and so we filed an amicus brief which is for those non lawyers out there is like a friend of the court brief. So the petitioners and the government are filed briefs that the 9th circuit will consider and then a number of organizations and different groups from many different walks of life filed these friend of the court briefs. And the point of these briefs is really to provide additional perspectives and additional information for the court to consider when they're issuing a decision. So we came in with these end of life organizations and really some of the leading researchers in the space to provide their perspective to the court in complement to the petitioners themselves, who are really the ones advocating for the rescheduling process to be opened by the DEA. So we're waiting for a decision from the 9th Circuit. If we're successful, they would remand to the DEA to open this rulemaking process and that would present a real opportunity for the medical community, studying psilocybin in particular. And so I'll keep you posted.

Ross O'Brien 41:26

We should do the next podcast out on the front steps of the courthouse, right?

Jennifer Fischer 41:32

Exactly.

Ross O'Brien 41:34

Investigative journalism? No, that is not the objective here, to hear everybody's perspectives and have this kind of conversation. So, Bill, thank you very much for your time today. Jennifer, always great seeing you. Thanks for being friends of the firm and the podcast. And I look forward to a following conversation, so let folks know where they can find you.

Jennifer Fischer 41:55

Yeah, please reach out anytime. Again. My name is Jennifer Fisher. I'm in the San Francisco office of Goodwin and would be happy to chat with anyone who's interested in these issues.

Bill Growney 42:05

Bill Growney, I'm in the Silicon Valley office, and it's Bgrowney@goodwinlaw.com or Jfisher@goodwinlaw.com, and.

Ross O'Brien 42:16

We'Ll do all the fancy stuff like links and stuff like that. Thank you very much for another great episode of the Psychedelic Capital podcast