It’s no longer a secret that venturing into psychedelics could be the next viral trend for investors seeking to enter the budding sector with vast social impact. Although multiple media channels are comparing psychedelics to marijuana, the truth is that psychedelic drugs are likely to follow a biotech path.
That path entails stringent measures to entry, complex legislative processes, and the necessity of expert professionals. Business owners will have to concentrate on hard science that offers factual solutions rather than basic creative thinking with salesperson flair.
More ancillary ventures are expected to pop up to back the psychedelics ecosystem, and new entrepreneurs in the sector are expected to lead them. However, psychedelic organizations that focus on drug development and research will require more hard work and creativity.
IP (intellectual property), corporate structuring ( to promote research on regulated drugs), and meticulous recurring administrative support are some of the complex requirements that prosperous psychedelics firms will need to comply with.
For both experienced and novice investors, the psychedelics sector presents various imminent risks. Any industry investment is a risky affair and with the impediment of psychedelics, the risks increase.
Any investor who’s thinking about injecting funds into the psychedelics sector should be prudent enough to hire a legal expert who is well-versed with the psychedelic industry. Apart from getting you new deals, a legal professional may also offer counsel on particular IP that an organization can claim to own.
We talked with the top five law firms that focus on psychedelics to offer us insight into their information; thus, interested individuals can be more educated. Here’s what they said:
Cannabis Law
This full-service law facility exclusively specializes in the psychedelic and cannabis industries.
We merge big-company experience with boutique-company attention to offer a specialized service for psychedelic and cannabis businesses.
Our founders’ history as a certified CPA, attorney, real estate agent, and prosperous entrepreneur enables the company to offer its patrons unique business approaches customized to suit these sectors’ specific requirements.
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG)
BLG is a Canadian law firm with the leading statewide full-service. It has over 750 experts practicing from its five offices within Canada. BLG’s Cannabis and Psychedelics Focus Panel operates a sturdy practice counseling product developers, financial institutions, non-profits, clinics, clinical test sponsors, and other innovators related to entheogens, entactogens, dissociative anesthetics, and psychedelics.
BLG harbors a national, multi-disciplinary practice in psychedelics that offers top-of-the-line and focused service and advice to stakeholders within the psychedelics sector. Our group of marketplace experts discerns and is aware of relevant regulatory, financial, scientific, and IP factors. We envision a future that’s full of opportunities for individuals with a proficient team and appropriate plan. In the psychedelic industry, BLG is a team member who manages sophisticated corporate transactions and advises on technological advancement and operational hurdles.
Risks and opportunities are interconnected in psychedelics. Our customers rely on us to offer tailored legal and business advice centered on the financial and regulatory landscape with the stakeholders’ consciousness. We also offer expert legal advice on regulatory approvals, intellectual property, and other properties related to psychedelics. We are elated to support history’s right side as business and social perspectives on psychedelics ascend past prohibition.
Solicitors
Based in Central London, with branches in Birmingham’s nucleus, we’ve been offering top-notch legal counsel and services for almost two centuries.
As a company, we’re here to reduce the complications in your life. Offering practical and clear solutions amid the complex network of legal jargon, our capacity to improve the accessibility of legal counsel has culminated in the company exhibiting an incredibly high customer retention rate.
We put ourselves in our client’s shoes to offer customized service and our partners oversee each case while working closely with our panel at all tiers.
Mackrell.Solicitors is large enough to provide practical and comprehensive expertise; thus our patrons can use our institution to handle all their legal requirements, irrespective of complexity or scale.
Being a full-service law company also enables us to easily refer duties between our offices and departments in Birmingham and London. We don’t outsource part of the client’s legal needs which saves both money and time. Our legal services are available both internationally and locally.
Being the creators of Mackrell International, a three-decade-old worldwide network of about 4,500 attorneys across sixty countries, it allows us to provide the added value of instant international legal counsel and aid any territory across the world. We’re a global network of attorneys with in-depth local awareness.
Our expert services are well-known in our profession and we’ve grabbed several statewide legal awards.
We are fluent in languages such as English, French, Swahili, Spanish, Punjabi, Hindi, Italian, Gujarati, German and Cantonese.
Calyx Law
This law firm was incepted in 2016 by Pechenik Graham and was the first IP law boutique to dwell on psychedelics and cannabis.
Pechenik is a certified patent lawyer with degrees in Cognitive Neuroscience and Biochemistry. Before founding Calyx Law, he acquired more than ten years of experience defending and obtaining some of America’s high-end patents. He also represented multiple Fortune 500 organizations in the chemical, agricultural, biotech, pharmaceutical, and tech spaces.
At Calyx Law, Pechenik has prosecuted several patents within the psychedelics and cannabis spaces, covering innovations such as entactogens, entheogens, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical formulations of cannabinoids, and psilocybin, treatment methods, software, mechanical devices, and extraction equipment and processes. Also, Graham represents clients with IP agreements and licenses, enforcement, and trade fillings.
Owing to his background in telemedicine and bioethics regulation, Pechenik aids with concerns at the psychedelic intersection with data privacy and digital health.
Apart from using intellectual property to foster growth and value, Graham has also helped clients develop IP approaches to align venture partners with ethical principles.
During the budding stage of a flower, it’s protected by sepals enclosing it as it develops and providing stability as it opens. This is called the calyx structure. Like a flower’s calyx, Pechenik sees his firm’s role as assisting early-stage and seed-stage companies get the support and protection they require to achieve full bloom.
Aird & Berlis LLP
The Aird & Berlis LLP is a reputable law firm based in Canada, a leader in the psychedelics space. We offer legal counsel to public and private firms operating in the clinical center, pharmaceutical, wellness commodities, and medical tourism associated market segments. Our company is leading this budding sector with a team of over 200 attorneys, business advisors, patent agents offering strategic legal counsel in all principal business law niches to psychedelics clients, such as Mergers & Acquisitions, Intellectual Property, Capital Markets, Real Estate, Workplace, and Tax.
The investment, regulatory and legal landscape of the psychedelics sector is complicated and is rapidly evolving in the United States, Canada, and across the globe. The Commercial/Corporate and Capital Markets lawyers at Aird & Berlis have international and local regulatory and legal competence to counsel investors, lenders, companies, and other market stakeholders who are seeking opportunities in the psychedelics industry. We advise our clients on the complicated laws related to psychedelics, including adherence to the Foods and Drugs At and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
As medical applications of psychedelics emerge in Canada and across the world, our wide Capital Markets knowledge can help clients grow their business further by helping with funding and go-public deals on the Canadian stock exchanges. Being a full-service company, we liaise with clients in all practice areas to serve the whole suite of patent and legal needs of psychedelic patrons.
