If you hadn’t noticed psilocybin’s move toward the mainstream, a company like Numinus will come as a surprise. Led by founder and CEO Payton Nyquvest, Numinus is a brand-fantasy of the next iteration of wellness: clean, straightforward, empathetic, inclusive and self-aware. It’s one of several Canadian companies—Field Trip Health and Wellness among them—ready to capitalize on psilocybin. Its head office in Vancouver’s Gastown may look like any random vegan café, but instead of cookies, it has ketamine—currently the main psychedelic legally used in therapy in Canada. At some point the company plans to use psilocybin too. Found in “magic mushrooms,” psilocybin is in clinical trials, in Canada and internationally, for use as a potential treatment for mental illness.
