A significant player in the psychedelics industry has received a $5 million infusion from hedge fund billionaire and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen and his wife, deepening the couple’s efforts to bring mind-altering therapies into the mainstream.
The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation is donating the funds to MAPS, or the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies, a nonprofit that has pushed for more research on psychedelic drugs since 1986. The organization is engaged in a financially intensive push to get the US Food and Drug Administration to approve MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, for use against post-traumatic stress disorder.
MAPS’ public-benefit-corporation subsidiary plans to submit a new-drug application to the FDA later this year, the foundation said in a statement Wednesday. If the agency approves an MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, MAPS and the foundation will create a patient-assistance fund to ease access to the treatment for needy individuals, backed in part by revenue generated by the public-benefit corporation.
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