Florian Brand - MDMA and DMT trials, Raising $400M from Peter Thiel and other investors, Difficulties of bringing a drug to market, The journey of increasing self-awareness

Florian Brand co-founder and Co-CEO of ATAI Life Sciences. ATAI was founded in 2018 and is a global, listed, biopharma company with the vision to heal mental health disorders so that everyone, everywhere can live a more fulfilled life. They were one of the pioneers to use psilocybin in treating mental health and they have raised around $400M equity and debt from Petter Thiel and other investors to build a portfolio of compounds like MDMA, DMT and others, to go through clinical trials and bring them to market. During this episode we discuss about Florians' motivation to start Atai, how drug discovery works and why it takes around 10 years to bring to market, and a personal story of trying psychedelics to go through the loss of a loved one. Enjoy!