Billionaire Steve Cohen Buys 19M Shares Of Cybin Stock For Psychedelics R&D, Blake Mycoskie $100M Pledge

Billionaire hedge fund and NY Mets owner, Steve Cohen amped up his support for psychedelics R&D through a new investment of nearly 19 million in beneficially owned shares of Cybin Inc. CYBN.

The considerably large acquisition puts Cybin in the limelight with credibility status in ongoing and future work - see Cybin’s recent acquisition announcement of DMT therapeutics developer Small Pharma DMTTF. 

Together with his wife Alexandra, the Wall Street tycoon has been funding groundbreaking projects with these compounds in past years to the tune of over $31 million in donations. 

The couple’s foundation has been one of the largest donors to MAPS’ MDMA clinical research, which recently published new, highly encouraging results for PTSD treatment.

The shares, purchased through Cohen’s Point72 asset management firm, add to the institutional investment the sector recently received and its further validation. 

Owning over $26 billion in assets, the firm shared the purchase of almost 19 million Cybin shares via a new Schedule 13G form filing to the SEC -representing over 8% of stock ownership.

Additionally from constituting the fund’s first public position in a psychedelics company according to The New Money, the document also states that Point72 now holds a portfolio value of $33.62 billion, reported Josh Turnrow for Economic Journal Mag.

Blake Mycoskie On His $100M Pledge To Psychedelics Research

Following a sound pledge of $100 million for psychedelics research, billionaire Blake Mycoskie has updated on how his funding agenda -representing around 25% of his wealth- will unfold.

The Toms Shoes founder told Bloomberg’s Tiffany Kary he’s already donated $11 million, of which “about $1.5 million” is invested in for-profit companies (including MindMed MNMD, atai Life Sciences ATAI, and MAPS PBC) and $9.5 million went to nonprofits. 

The original plan of giving around 70% to nonprofits and 30% to for-profits remains. One upcoming beneficiary of his funding will be Fireside Project, a nationwide peer-support line providing free harm reduction services.

Mycoskie says he is planning to “give $5 million a year for the rest of the time, until the $100 million runs out,” a yearly sum that “feels right, because the industry still feels nascent.” 

That could change in the presence of “a huge opportunity” or in the need of “a huge campaign push.” Although he understands other donors are waiting for further regulatory and scientific success, his personal standpoint is that those aren’t needed in view of solid works authored by Johns Hopkins and New York University, among others. 

Mycoskie’s involvement extends beyond the money allocation, aiming to establish a “donor-advised” board to help direct more donations to nonprofits in the psychedelics space. “But that plan is a couple years out — I need some other big high-net-worth donors to step up — with $50 million to $100 million pledges. If so, we could do it.”

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by anaterate and sergeitokmakov on Pixabay.