The end of 2024 marks two years in the books for the Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) program. It has been a long road: in my year-end 2023 post, I explained that the program was incubated on a protracted, two-year runway prior to launch. This mean we are four years along, with two years of live
Oregon’s rule limiting the non-resident ownership of licensed psilocybin businesses sunsets on December 31, 2024. That’s a little over six months away. Six months is not that long, especially in the context of getting to know an industry or a business, and putting a thoughtful deal together– one that will generate reasonable returns for an
Should private equity be involved in health care? If so, in what types of settings? And to what extent? These are baseline considerations around a broad concept referred to as “corporate practice of medicine” (“CPOM”) that state legislatures, agencies, medical licensing boards, courts and attorneys general and grappled with for over a century. The Oregon
It’s hard to believe that we are wrapping up the first year of the Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) program. Final rules were released at this time last year, following a protracted, two-year development period. The application window for licenses opened timely on January 2, 2023, and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) continues to administer this
Perhaps inevitably, lawmakers introduced a very skinny bill last week to protect states that legalize psilocybin from federal intervention. Specifically, it requires that: [n]o Federal funds may be used to prevent any State or unit of local government from implementing such State’s or unit of local government’s own laws that authorize the use, distribution, sale,
At the kickoff of the Oregon legislative session in January, I wrote Oregon Psilocybin 2023: Legislative Forecast and Report. The session went awry in April, when Oregon Senate Republicans staged a walkout over gun and abortion bills. The walkout lasted six weeks, with our representatives re-opening for business on June 15th— just 10 days before sin die on
The Oregon psilocybin program has a residency requirement. I explained how it works here, and wrote “queue the crazy business structures.” Because the program is off to a slow start (see here and here) I haven’t received as many crazy requests as expected. Well, that changed last week when I received a proposal that made
Last week, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) awarded a pair of psilocybin manufacturer licenses. First two! Congrats to Tori Arbrust of Satori Farms PDX, and Andres Met of Satya Therapeutics, known to many of us from the Oregon cannabis program. We should also congratulate OHA, which had aimed to issue manufacturing licenses by the end
Our marketing people somehow determined that I should write a piece comparing Oregon’s new psilocybin program with The Last of Us– which is a zombie show about a global pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection. Apparently this type of content gets a lot of eyeballs. I said: I don’t want to watch a whole
It seems that the Oregon psilocybin program is off to a slow start. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) did a good job meeting the Measure 109 rulemaking and development deadlines, including by opening the license application portal back on January 2. Still, a slew of factors, some of them structural, have tempered program launch. The
