My next venture - innovation and new paradigms for mental health & wellness

The past few years have brought a number of exciting new challenges & opportunities to instigate change. In addition to my recently announced Associate Faculty appointment at Johns Hopkins, I’m excited to share that I’ve also taken on a new role as Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at Huxley Health - a global biotechnology company developing a portfolio of psychedelic-inspired therapeutics and technologies to help transform mental health and wellness. 

Over the past year and half, we have been busy designing across the value-chain, from discovery to delivery, catalyzing an end-to-end business model that leverages exclusive partnerships with leading experts and institutions around the world. Structured into 3 core pillars – R&D, Nutraceuticals & Clinics - our efforts are guided by an accomplished and multidisciplinary team of experts spanning areas including neuropsychopharmacology, drug development, public health & medicine, (ethno)botany, mycology, policy & regulation, capital markets and human-centred design. Together, we are using cutting-edge research and an evidence-based approach to develop next generation plant & fungi inspired therapeutics and nutraceuticals, as well as potentially paradigm shifting modalities to harness and deliver their potential. 

Over the past 15 years, my research and practice has focused largely on designing, implementing, evaluating, and scaling innovations with the potential for population health impact. As a practitioner and professor of health innovation, I’ve had the privilege of being able to focus these efforts on some of the biggest challenges in global public health (examples of specific projects are linked):

·       Malaria;

·       Tuberculosis;

·       Childhood diarrhoea, including helping to lead the successful bid to get co-packaged ORS & Zinc onto the WHO Model Essential Medicines List;

·       COVID-19 (e.g. https://uwaterloo.ca/news/impact-stories/five-valuable-insights-global-health-expert)

·       The role of the private sector in health delivery

·       Product Development Partnerships for Neglected Tropical Diseases; and so much more. 

I am now turning my attention to one of the next grand challenges in global public health – the mental health crisis.

As we come to live with, and learn from, the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic, we must all reflect on one of its most salient features – the heavy toll it has taken on people’s mental health. Rates of already highly prevalent conditions such as depression and anxiety went up by more than 25% in the 1st year of the pandemic alone, adding to the ~1 billion people who were already living with a mental disorder globally. Simultaneously, we must recognize the shortcomings of the health systems and solutions available to address the needs of communities with new as well as pre-existing mental health conditions.

We need to transform our attitudes, actions and approaches to promote and protect mental health, and to provide and care for those in need so that people can lead their most fulfilled lives. There is an urgent need for innovation, and this is our focus at Huxley. After all, there is no health without mental health. 

I look forward to sharing more about our mission, innovation journey, and the many lessons we are learning and will continue to learn, here. Watch this space. 

www.thehuxleygroup.com

“Psychedelics will be for psychiatry [the mind/consciousness] what the microscope is for biology or the telescope for astronomy. These tools make it possible to study important processes that under normal circumstances are not available for direct observation. ”

-Dr. Stanislav Grof, Professor of Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, Pioneer of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy