Cerebral Inc. and Field Trip Health Ltd. announced a partnership they say creates an end-to-end solution for mental health needs.
Cerebral, a San Francisco-based digital mental health startup, will now be able to refer qualifying patients to Field Trip Health, a Toronto-based psychedelic-assisted treatment provider. Field Trip Health will in turn connect its patients with Cerebral for comprehensive general psychiatry and teletherapy services, according to a news release.
The financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.
“The recent shift in the mental health landscape has resulted in a need for modernized, digitized, and personalized solutions,” Dr. David Mou, Cerebral’s chief medical officer, said in the release. “We’re constantly searching for novel ways to work towards that goal, which is why we chose to partner with Field Trip, a like-minded company with an aligning ethos that brings psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to the table for our clients.”
Cerebral claims to be the fastest growing online mental health care company in the world. The company said in a previous announcement that its subscription base grew 400 percent in 2021 and grew its clinical team of licensed prescribers, therapists, and counselors to 2,500.
In December, Cerebral landed $300 million Series C with a $4.8 billion valuation.
“Our partnership with Cerebral will lower the barriers of entry into ketamine assisted therapy for many people who have solely been exposed to generalized psychiatry or might have not been presented with an alternative of exploring a healing journey propelled through psychedelics,” Ronan Levy, Field Trip’s executive chairman said in the release. “Together we will help change the mental health landscape by bringing together teletherapy, telepsychiatry, and psychedelic-assisted therapy and offer more comprehensive benefits to consumers’ mental health.”
The company claims to be the largest psychedelic-assisted therapy provider in North America. In the U.S., Field Trip Health operates in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston.
Field Trip Health opened its first European site in Amsterdam in September, according to a previous announcement.
Psychedelics in behavioral health continue to grow in prominence. In January, Behavioral Health Business reported That Delic Holdings Corp. is eyeing greater expansion in the U.S. BHB also reported on the creation of a new psychedelics-focused actively managed investment issuer, Origin Therapeutics.
However, much of the movement in the U.S. comes from international companies trying to navigate an inhospitable regulatory environment in the U.S. Currently, psychedelics are federally classified as Schedule I drugs, which are illegal to sell and grow, unless those substances are being used for research purposes — a loophole many American psychedelic companies hope to take advantage of.