Will atai Stock Pop on Earnings?

atai stock could get a nice bump this week when it announces earnings.

Or at least that’s what atai investors are hoping for.  Whether or not that’ll happen is still anyone’s guess.

Overall, atai is doing some pretty amazing things in the world of psychedelics.  In fact, it currently has five strategic investments and programs for psychedelic compounds actively in FDA clinical trials.  One in particular is a psilocybin-based treatment for “treatment-resistant depression” that’s currently in Phase 3 clinical trials.  

The company also has a licensing deal with Otsuka Pharmaceutical (market cap: $27.3 billion), and has enough funding to provide runway into 2026.

It should also be noted that the company’s founder and chairman is Christian Angermayer, who runs the family office and private investment firm, Apeiron Investment Group.  Apeiron has more than $3 billion under management.  It’s a major player in the world of life sciences, crypto and fintech.  Christian was also recently on the Joe Rogan podcast discussing one of his other ventures: the Enhanced Games, which is also being promoted by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (net worth: $7.6 billion) and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan (net worth: $150 million, est.)

Of course, even with an entrepreneurial rockstar such as Christian Angermayer steering the ship, the overall status of the psychedelics market still affects the value of atai stock.  Which did hit some headwinds last month. 

atai stock pressured by FDA Decision

In early June, psychedelics stocks across the board tumbled.  This, after an FDA advisory committee announced it rejected Lykos’ Therapeutics’ MDMA-based therapy designed to treat PTSD.

If you’re unfamiliar, this was the first potential FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  MDMA is a stimulant and hallucinogen that distorts time and perception while producing energizing effects.  Clinical trials and a mountain of anecdotal evidence, has suggested MDMA could be a valuable treatment for PTSD, particularly for veterans. 

To be honest, I was a bit surprised when the FDA’s advisory committee rejected Lykos’ PTSD treatment.  After all, phase III clinical trials were positive.  And the American Medical Association cleared the CPT codes necessary to allow participating insurance companies to cover psychedelic-based treatments.

To clarify, this was not the FDA rejecting the MDMA-based therapy.  But rather a committee that advises the FDA on these things. This advisory committee had some concerns, including the quality of some of the data from the clinical trials as well as the issue of just requesting an approval for the combination of a drug treatment used with therapy.  This is new territory, to be sure. 

I don’t doubt the committee’s analysis was as thorough.  But some are looking at this as evidence that the medical establishment just isn’t qualified to make determinations on some of these psychedelics-based treatments that require talk therapy as a part of those treatments.  This presents a serious obstacle for psychedelics companies, including atai.

This isn’t to say the FDA will never approve a psychedelics-based treatment.  I actually believe it will, and it’ll likely happen a lot sooner than most folks realize.

Still, with uncertainty surrounding the approval of psychedelics in the near term, psychedelics investors are certainly faced with a certain level of risk that some may not comfortable with.

But you know the old saying: fortune favors the bold.  In other words, you’re not going to get rich by only investing in a handful of blue chip stocks.  In fact, some of the biggest gains I ever made were from stocks that were considered “high-risk.”  Like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), for instance or Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX: WEED).  Canopy is a cannabis stock I recommended right before Canada legalized that glorious plant.  On that one alone, we walked away with a gain in excess of 3,000%.

In terms of psychedelic stocks, the risk is high. But there really are only a few that are worth keeping on your watch list, anyway.  In addition to atai stock, these include…

• Compass Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS)
• Cybin, Inc. (NYSE: CYBN)
• MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD)

Of course, not everyone is OK taking on this kind of risk.  And I get that.  So if you’re looking for big gains in absence of significant risk, you might want to consider this new government stimulus stipends program, which pays as much as $8,000 per quarter.

If you’re unfamiliar, this is an income-generating strategy based around government-funded real estate programs that allows you to wet your beak from leasing revenues all across the country.  

While I’m no fan of government stimulus programs, I am a fan of making some quick cash.  And that’s exactly what this is.  So you might as well grab it while it’s still available.

You can get all the details on this government stimulus program, including how you can actually start collecting your cut right away, in this new special report published by our Energy & Capital research team.

To a new way of life and a new generation of wealth…

Jeff Siegel

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Jeff is the founder and managing editor of Green Chip Stocks. For more on Jeff, go to his editor’s page.

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