October 10th is World Mental Health Day 

Today, on occasion of World Mental Health Day, many are highlighting the shocking scale of the global mental health crisis and how this affects approx. a staggering one billion people worldwide – over one seventh of the global population.

Unfortunately though, as harrowing and monstrous this number is, it is my belief that this is a gross UNDER-estimate.

Ultimately, the number of people needing mental health support is arguably all 100% of the world’s population. Here is why:

1) De-stigmatization will show the true magnitude of the problem

Shockingly, mental health issues are still stigmatised. This means, many people who need and deserve help, are not reaching out. Not to their families. Not to their friends, not to a therapist. And their number is not counted in the official statistics.

Luckily, this is gradually getting better. Society is waking up. There should be no stigma to mental health issues, as there is no stigma to cancer or any other disease. It happens to the best of us.

Trust your friends and family and, above all, seek help. 

But, as we overcome this stigma we will then see an explosion of number of patients and extent of required support.

2) The world we are creating is a disaster in the making for our mental health. We are facing a mental health pandemic

Beyond an escalation in patient numbers through de-stigmatization, the world we are building – full of technological wonders but also constant change and disruption – is very bad for our mental health.

Our mind seeks stability and continuity, and our world is providing anything else than that. 

I am convinced that, over the next 20 years, we, as a human race, will not just completely redesign the world around us – from synthetic biology to self-driving cars with all its effects on city design to space travel, to just name a few examples – but also re-design and re-define what it means to be human itself. Every single aspect of our life will be touched and transformed by technology over the next 20 years.

While we at Apeiron Investment Group strive to be one of the driving forces of these exciting times and help create the world we truly want to live in, we must acknowledge that these developments will be a massive stress test for our minds.

We cannot risk waiting until the inevitable happens and mental health issues multiple exponentially – with potentially devastating spill over effects for all of us: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/those-who-cannot-remember-past-condemned-repeat-christian-angermayer/

We have to act NOW.

Pushing technological advancements and, at the same time prioritizing our mental health, are for us two sides of the very same coin.

3) There are many more issues out there we haven’t even defined as treatable conditions yet

When talking about mental health, we mainly think of depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction etc. But, beyond that, there are many more issues in our society, which also deserve to be taken seriously and tackled.

One urgent example is loneliness.

61% of Americans felt lonely in 2019. In 2018, that number was 54%. And you can only expect this number to have skyrocketed during Covid in 2020 and beyond.

Loneliness is a scourge of society and has been such throughout all ages, but especially affects older people.

Take a retirement home. This could be like a summer camp. You make new friends, you enjoy your years in a happy-go-lucky way, party, reflect, dream. TOGETHER. Instead, many nursing homes feel more like a prison; the inhabitants sitting lonely in their rooms, miserably awaiting the end.

While part of this can be explained by how we integrate (or fail to integrate) old people in our society and families, another part is that, even IF older people do have the opportunity of integration and connection, it is simply not easy for them.

The power to make new friends (think of the age at which you met your best friend), to be open for new things and to have a general excitement for change declines steadily the older we get. And that decline starts as early as in your 30s. This is why Steve Jobs has frequently credited psychedelics as one of the sources of inspiration and disruptive power in his own older age.

It is my vision that, one day, a psychedelic experience can be part of any retirement home, to open the hearts and minds of its inhabitants, make them able to explore new friendships again in their last chapter of life and – once the end is inevitable – to accept and make the next step with a truly peaceful mind and soul.

4) Just because somebody is not clinically depressed, they might not be happy either

My ultimate goal is to change the way we look at mental health. Not just as something to be treated when it gets very bad, but as the No. 1 priority we ALL should put FIRST: being truly happy. 

Ultimately therefore, it is my belief that the total addressable market for mental health is 100%.

Because that’s what we ALL want: to live a healthy and, especially, happy life. And, when this is achieved, we will want to extend our healthy life span for as long as possible – but that’s for another blog post 😉

Apeiron’s commitment 

With our flagship company, atai Life Sciences, we are already making significant headway towards unlocking innovative treatments to improve the status quo for everybody worldwide suffering from mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.

atai currently has multiple projects underway to investigate the potential of psychedelic compounds like “magic mushrooms” / Psilocybin, DMT (N-Dimethyltryptamine) and Ibogaine, and develop these as approvable medical treatments.

With re.Mind Capital, we have also created the largest mental health venture fund globally, with USD 150 million in its first fund.

And, over the next few weeks, we will reveal further initiatives and investments, about which I am VERY excited.

Stay tuned. Our quest has just begun.