Peter Thiel-backed psychedelic start-up’s shares pop in Wall Street debut

Shares of the Peter Thiel-backed psychedelic start-up Atai Life Sciences jumped Friday on their first day of trading on Wall Street.

The newly listed Nasdaq stock opened up 40% before pulling back some. The shares closed up nearly 30% to $19.45 each.

The German biotech’s initial public offering was priced Thursday night at $15 per share, the high end of the expected range. The company, which aims to make psychedelic drugs to treat mental health disorders, raised $225 million at a valuation of $2.3 billion.

Atai is the third psychedelic biotech to go public in the U.S., following in the footsteps of MindMed, which went public on the Nasdaq in April, and Founders Fund-backed Compass Pathways, which listed in September. As of Thursday’s close, Compass Pathways was up 26% since its debut, and MindMed, which just announced its CEO’s resignation, was down about 19% since its IPO.

Each biotech is developing therapies using the psychedelic mushroom compound psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA derivatives to treat addiction and mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury. Three years after its founding, Atai Life Sciences has 10 therapeutic programs in its pipeline, each at various stages of clinical trials.

Atai founder and Chairman Christian Angermayer said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, “The world we’re building is a bad place for our brain, so mental health issues will go up. But I do think we have some real shots in our portfolio to end the mental health crisis.”

Investor interest in psychedelic treatments has grown alongside burgeoning interest in these therapies from the medical community.

Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Icahn School of Medicine are among the centers studying psychedelics and psychology. Recent studies establishing MDMA’s promise in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and the efficacy of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms, in treating drug-resistant depression have only heightened interest in the space.

Angermayer was an early investor in Compass Pathways, and his own company Atai serves as a holding company for various psychedelic start-ups pursuing alternative treatments for mental illness. He told CNBC on Friday that new-age biotechs are building on centuries of practice in shamanistic cultures and religions.

There are currently federal restrictions for psychedelic mushrooms, MDMA — commonly known as molly or ecstasy — and LSD around the world. However, Oregon last year became the first U.S. state to legalize psychedelics for therapeutic use. Residents in Washington, D.C., also recently voted in support of decriminalizing the use of psychedelics for medicinal purposes.

Angermayer is betting that federal approval of these drugs for therapeutic use could make a huge difference for those suffering from mental illness. “They are…