now is Ronan Levi, he is the chief executive
chairman rather of field trip health. It's a company
looking to use the psychedelic ketamine to help with therapeutic
mental health treatments. Ronan joins us from Davos.
Switzerland where psychedelics and kryptos are the two hottest topics
on the street. Ronan ketamine. I feel like
it doesn't have a great reputation. How do you
overcome that when you're trying to pitch this is really
a therapeutic for mental health? You know, it's
a fair question and and you know, I came
into this having similar kind of concerns about the reputation
about ketamine. But when it comes to any conversation
there's two things that matter. One is stories hearing
the stories of people who have used ketamine assisted therapy
effectively to change their lives. And then the data
and and both of them speak for themselves right now
. You know a person coming through a field Trip
health center. We have eight in the U.
S. Three in Canada and one in the Netherlands
where we actually provide psilocybin assisted therapy. So we're
not exclusive to ketamine. But what we're seeing is
the average person who comes in their depression scores and
their anxiety scores go from severe to mild. And
that benefit lasts for 100 and 20 days, 180
days. You know, as far as I'm aware
and it's not an apples to apples comparison. I
recognize that but there is no single more effective depression
or anxiety treatment option currently available anywhere bar none other
than what we're doing in field trip health and other
service providers providing ketamine assisted therapy. Well ketamine assisted
therapy, Ronan has for years been used in the
treatment of depression, but it's been done in clinical
settings, inpatient settings, in outpatient settings and hospitals
where people actually have to get this administered by medical
professionals. People who go to medical school. One
of the reasons we wanted to have you come on
the program today is because earlier this month, you
along with new Life announced telehealth away to sort of
do this at home where people can get ketamine at
home. How do you do that in a safe
way? What does this look like? Yeah,
I think it's first important to recognize that ketamine is
actually an incredibly safe drug. The World Health Organization
has declared it to be one of like one of
the essential medicines that every country needs access to if
you have Children and your Children say break a bone
and you take them to the emerged emergency room odds
are the doctor is going to administer ketamine as an
anesthetic for that purpose. So we're talking about incredibly
safe but the doctor is going to administer it sometimes
. Yes. But actually Academy has described all the
time. It's very commonly prescribed. And and so
what we see a field trip is that we're providing
incredible results and an incredible outcomes and doing it in
a clinical setting that is designed to support these experiences
is wonderful and certainly a preferred option but it's simply
not accessible to everybody. Whether it's the cost restrictions
because it does cost more to come to an in
clinic setting or whether it's a geographic consideration. Because
not everybody lives in a location where they have access
to a clinic providing this kind of care providing the
at home ketamine offering is something that really enables people
to access this. And the partnership with New Life
was selected by us because they share the mission driven
values that we have which is we want to provide
good quality care. And so we we actively screen
every person who wants to be part of the at
home ketamine service offering to make sure that ketamine therapy
is an appropriate use for them that they're well equipped
that they have the necessary infrastructure and support around them
before we even prescribed to them. And even then
when when we do prescribe or when when a new
life clinician more technically accurately prescribes to them. You
know, we provide small doses, it's not like
you're getting a large dose of ketamine that you can
use frequently. And how is it, how do
they take it at home? How do they take
it? It's provided as a lozenge. So you
put it under your tongue. Um the first dose
tends to be small, probably less than 50 mg
. And because of the bio availability that reduces probably
to less than 20 mg. So definitely feel the
effects of it, but it's not an intense dose
And even if it was an intense dose, ketamine
as an anesthetic is incredibly safe. There's no real
risk of overdose. It's not like other opioids or
anesthetics where you can depress your central nervous system,
There's virtually no risk of that associated with ketamine.
So the biggest risk associated with ketamine is either people
trying to do it too often and potentially developing some
degree of addiction to it, which is rare,
but it is certainly possible for people something choking on
the laws and those are the real risk that we're
running. We're running up against the clock, only
have about 30 seconds. This is a show for
retail investors. Field trips stock is down 81% over
the past year. That is in line with other
psychedelic stocks. There's a few etfs that track that
as well. But what would be your message to
maybe some of the retail investors watching this show about
why this stock makes sense? It makes sense because
if you believe that the future of mental health is
a good investment opportunity and you want to look at
medicines like psychedelics that are incredibly safe and incredibly potent
and effective, then it is the best bet to
make. I genuinely believe in the emerging health mental
health care sector