Introducing The Trip Report Podcast
Greetings and welcome to The Trip Report by Beckley Waves.
As you may have inferred from the subject line, after four years of writing The Trip Report Newsletter, we’re finally starting a podcast!
I want to share some thoughts on what you can expect and what we hope to accomplish with this new endeavor.
At Beckley Waves, our goal is to support the creation of a vibrant, safe, and accessible psychedelic ecosystem.
We do this by building companies, investing in early-stage founders, and collaborating with a wide array of stakeholders—all of which provide us with a first-hand look at how this rapidly evolving field’s unique features and limitations affect scientific, business, and policy progress.
The Trip Report attempts to foster an educated and informed psychedelic ecosystem by sharing what we learn as we try to make sense of the opportunities and challenges ahead.
To date, we’ve done this through long-form commentary and analysis on the news, developments, and complexities across the business, science, and policy fronts.
Now, with the addition of a podcast, we are able to bring in the voices of a wide range of stakeholders—scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, therapists, activists, and even skeptics and detractors—at the forefront of the psychedelic renaissance.
During the recent MAPS Psychedelic Science conference, we recorded several conversations covering topics ranging from drug policy reform, neuropharmacology, and how to design clinical infrastructure, to the FDA approval process and indigenous reciprocity, among others.
Today, we’re sharing the first three.
Dr. Amy Kruse
First is my conversation with Dr. Amy Kruse, a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, General Partner, and Chief Investment Officer at Satori Neuro.
This is the perfect conversation to kick off the podcast because it ranges widely—touching on the neuroscience of learning, various neurotechnologies, and psychedelic therapeutics—but we also nerd out on arcane concepts like the Yerkes-Dodson curve (an essential and overlooked concept in the field of psychedelics).
As you’ll hear, Dr. Kruse brings these concepts alive with a unique perspective as a neuroscientist, former program manager at DARPA, and neurotechnology entrepreneur.
Dr. Manish Agrawal
Next, I speak with Dr. Manish Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of Sunstone Therapies.
As you’ll tell from my enthusiasm in this episode, I am fond of Sunstone’s model because of my experience managing clinical trials in a similar environment earlier in my career.
Sunstone serves as an independent research site that carries out clinical trials for psychedelic drug developers like MAPS, Usona, and Compass Pathways, as well as their own investigator-initiated trials.
Most interestingly, in my opinion, is Dr. Agrawal’s 20-year career as an oncologist and the unique vantage this experience affords him and the Sunstone team in building care delivery and infrastructure for psychedelic-assisted therapies.
Josh Hardman
Finally, I speak with Josh Hardman of Psychedelic Alpha in a wide-ranging conversation about all things business, policy, and the future of the field.
Josh and I dive deep into the challenges for payor reimbursement of psychedelics, the FDA approval process, and the real-time shifting of the Overton window.
We also take a trip down memory lane to rehash the bizarre and frantic early days of psychedelic commercialization (aka the Shroomboom or Mushrush) circa 2020.
Going Forward
We’ll be publishing conversations every two weeks—or, as the Brits say, fortnightly— so keep an eye out for new episodes in your inbox at Thetripreport.com or your favorite podcast player.
If you like what we’re doing, here’s how you can help:
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And finally, if you have suggestions for guests, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or send us an email at hello@thetripreport.com!