Exclusive: Novamind CEO On Going Public: 'We're Focused On Treating People Today'

Novamind became the latest psychedelics company to go public through a reverse take-over with Hinterland Metals Inc.

The company debuted in the Canadian Securities Exchange on Tuesday under the symbol “NM.”

In late November, Novamind closed a private placement for CA$10 million ($7.8 million), adding to a total of CA$15.3 million raised since its inception.

As opposed to other psychedelics companies, Novamind is not building a library of intellectual property around psychedelic molecules. The company’s goal is to develop therapeutic protocols in conjunction with other players in the space, as well as offering treatment options for patients through a network of clinics and retreats.

Mental Health Clinics

According to Novamind CEO and director Yaron Conforti, industry peers are establishing new clinics, developing new brands, and going through the hard process of cultivating a patient base. They’re hiring psychiatrists and building an infrastructure from scratch.

“In our case, we very much partnered our way into this business,” Conforti told me.

“We were lucky to partner with someone very special who’s already been identified as a thought leader in psychedelic medicine for years now,” he continued, in reference to Reid Robison, co-founder of Cedar Psychiatry and Cedar Clinical Research.

In July, Novamind acquired the Utah-based Cedar network for CA$3.05 million (CA$1 million in cash and CA$2.05 million in Novamind shares), welcoming Robison as Novamind’s Chief Medical Officer.

The Cedar clinics offer regular outpatient mental health treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy, other forms of talk therapy, prescription management and psychiatric services.

Cedar is also known for offering more innovative and alternative neuropsychiatric modalities like transcranial magnetic stimulation and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Novamind is planning to expand the clinic network organically and through M&A, with the opening of a fifth Utah location during the first quarter of 2021.

The clinic network is projected to integrate new forms of psychedelic treatment as they become legalized.

Because of the experience and track record of the Cedar network, the company is expecting to become a trusted partner to apply psychedelics-assisted therapy once the treatments go online.

For Conforti — and many others in the space — MDMA-assisted therapy is expected to be federally available by 2023 and some form of psilocybin treatment will follow by 2025.

Novamind’s Clinical Research Arm

“In short, there’s two cores for our business,” Conforti says. “There’s a clinic network and there’s a clinical research facility which is also turning into a network.”

The two cores work in a symbiotic relationship to one another. Cedar Clinical Research is Reid Robison’s pursuit as a clinical researcher.

“Today, there’s about a dozen clinical trials,” he adds, calling Novamind’s clinical research strategy “drug and compound agnostic.”

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