Psychedelics Investment Holder Blackhawk Growth Hosts Meeting For Potential Subsidiary Spin-Out

Blackhawk Growth Corp. BLRZF, an investment holding company focused on acquiring and developing high-growth companies in the health, cannabis and psychedelics sectors in the US and Canada, announced it intends to complete a spin-out transaction of its wholly-owned subsidiaries MindBio Therapeutics Pty. Ltd. and Digital Mind Technology Pty Ltd. through a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia).

The new settlement would group the shares of both Australian-based companies together to form an independent company focusing on the psychedelics and mental health technologies business. 

Blackhawk’s CEO Frederick Pels stated: “This is a significant milestone for Blackhawk and Mindbio. The goal of this transaction is to unlock further value of the assets by allowing it to be developed separately, in a sector-focused public company by a skilled and experienced management team and ensure shareholders continue to benefit from the growth of both companies.”

On behalf of MindBio, co-founder Justin Hanka added: “We have worked hard with our scientific and advisory teams for a number of years to progress novel research through clinical trials and to realize value for shareholders. We aim to provide hope to sufferers of debilitating mental health conditions by developing new treatments and scaling and commercializing into the primary health care system.”

As part of the transaction, Blackhawk’s subsidiary SpinCo would become the parent company of the spin-out subsidiaries and under the new name “MindBio Therapeutics Corp.” would apply to have its common shares listed on the CSE. Blackhawk and Spinco expect to enter into an arrangement agreement to effect the spin-out with expected closing date sometime within Q1 2023.

All holders of common shares in the capital of Blackhawk as of the distribution date would receive one common share in the new MindBio Therapeutics Corp. for every Blackhawk share held, on a pro-rata basis.

During Blackhawk’s upcoming special shareholders' meeting dated 22 December 2022 shareholders will be able to vote on the mentioned spin-out transaction -record date for shareholders entitled to vote is 17 November 2022.

Novel MindBio Therapeutics Corp.’s anticipated board of directors and management shall be comprised of pharma sector specialist Gavin Upiter as chairman, current Australian Psychologists Society CEO and experienced advocate of health policy reform Dr. Zena Burgess as director, M&A expert investment banker and non-executive chairman of Blackhawk Growth Justin Hanka as co-founder and CEO, and risk and compliance authority John Dinan as CFO.

More On MindBio & Digital Mind

MindBio Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering psychedelic microdosing research and advancing emerging therapies to treat debilitating health conditions including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, cognitive impairment and PTSD. 

The company is developing microdose formulations and a range of technology and AI applications to ensure safe dosage, use and administration of psychedelic medicines. While early indications show that LSD is well-tolerated at microdose levels and holds a lower side effect profile than existing antidepressants, MindBio is set to conduct clinical trials on several other psychedelic substances as well, and further on to bring these newly-created IP to market and commercialization.

In April 2022 MindBio completed a Phase 1 clinical trial on LSD microdoses in 80 participants after receiving regulatory approval and government funding to import and work on LSD as well as approvals for participants to be prescribed the drug and take it at home as a conventional medication. 

With recently published positive outcomes, the continuation of this trial will be two-fold: a Phase 2 study on LSD microdoses for patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and a Phase 2 trial on LSD microdoses for late-stage cancer patients, both planned to commence on the first quarter of 2023.

Digital Mind Technology is a clinical-stage company developing mindfulness-based practices and technologies for further clinical research as well as designing digital interventions to treat mental health conditions -noticeably assisting MindBio in developing a proprietary intervention for its Phase 2 clinical trials on microdosing treatment protocol.

Recently, Digital Mind successfully completed a pilot randomized controlled trial with 69 patients of an on-line mindfulness-based program for people diagnosed with melanoma. 

This trial’s protocol was developed by Dr. Russell of the psycho-oncology research team at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The center evaluates supportive care interventions for people affected by cancer, and this program’s focus was set on empowering participants to self-manage their health by promoting awareness of emotions and teaching skills to manage distressing thoughts. 

Photo courtesy by chrissmith12 and Bru-nO on Pixabay.