Morgan Stanley Reports On Psychedelics: A Potential Long-Term Investment Portfolio For An Emerging Market

Counterpoint Global is Morgan Stanley’s MS Investment Management division in charge of understanding new or “disruptive” market opportunities that hold “the potential to trigger far-reaching consequences” and therefore constitute a likely sound, long-term investment, and this report focuses on psychedelics for medical purposes.  

As first shared by Psychedelic Alpha, the document provides a concise but solid overview of what psychedelics are and what is their action mechanism, their research history and which compounds are currently under advanced clinical trials. 

The report further explains the team’s account of why psychedelics are disruptive, what unmet medical needs they aim to help solve, potential markets as well as present and future challenges. 

Morgan Stanley’s report points out that “beyond mental illness and pain-related diseases, psychedelics have the potential to treat any disease where new neural pathways might improve function.”  

An interesting point is made regarding psychedelics and traditional medicine. “While multiple pharmacological and nonpharmacological options exist to treat mental illnesses, there have been no truly new psychiatric drug treatments since the 1980s, when Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most common type of antidepressants, came to market.” 

Further, facing the fact that SSRIs “help only about 25% of patients who take them” makes psychedelics-assisted therapy promising in that it “can change a patient’s fundamental outlook over the course of one to a handful of sessions.”

Yet the authors stress the need for “available and scalable” infrastructure and clinician support in order for the treatment to be successful in relieving suffering from mental health disorders. It specifically highlights adequacy in the therapists’ training and the setting, besides the general “costs and complexity” involved in this kind of treatment.

While the information may not be new to some, it is worth noting that this is the second review on psychedelics launched by a leader in financial services in recent days. This further affirms growing optimistic tendencies toward the overall psychedelics market. 

Photo Courtesy of Geralt on Pixabay.