GSD Venture Studios Podcasts by Gary Fowler

Building a Business on 5-MeO: The World's Most Powerful Psychedelic with Joel Brierre

27 min · 2. juni 2026
Billede af episoden Building a Business on 5-MeO: The World's Most Powerful Psychedelic with Joel Brierre

Description

Join Joel Brierre, Founder & CEO of KVI, for a frank and wide-ranging conversation on one of the most fascinating — and complex — frontiers in modern medicine and entrepreneurship: 5-MeO-DMT. Joel has been a pioneer in the modern psychedelic movement, specifically in the realm of 5-MeO-DMT, applying classical non-dual yogic philosophy as geography for both preparation and integration from the entheogenic experience. With KVI, he has built an ecosystem that sits at the intersection of retreat operations, academic research, and emerging biotech — collaborating with top universities including University College London to study the effects of 5-MeO-DMT in naturalistic ceremonial settings. In this episode, we go deep on what it actually takes to build, fund, and scale a company in a grey-area market — and why the science behind this molecule may reshape psychiatry, neuroscience, and drug development for decades to come. 🎯 Insights You'll Learn: What Makes 5-MeO-DMT Different: Why this compound occupies a category of its own among psychedelics — and what the emerging neuroscience is revealing about consciousness, the self, and the brain. The World's First EEG Study of the 5-MeO Peak: What happened when researchers measured brain electrical activity in participants who inhaled 5-MeO-DMT — and what the dramatic surge in slow brain waves, fragmenting into chaotic patterns across the cortex, tells us about this state of consciousness. Building in the Grey Area: The legal, regulatory, and reputational challenges of scaling a psychedelic company — and how Joel has navigated them without compromising the integrity of the work. The Retreat Business Model: What it takes to build safe, effective, and scalable retreat operations, and how KVI has professionalized a space that was once entirely underground. From Retreats to Biotech: How non-hallucinogenic analogs of 5-MeO-DMT are being developed to treat neurodegenerative diseases — and why the neuroplastogen space is just getting started. Raising Capital in Psychedelics: The unique challenges of investor education, deal structure, and fundraising in a market where the regulatory landscape is still forming. The UCL Collaboration: How KVI's partnership with UCL is gathering quantitative and qualitative data from retreat participants to assess changes in wellbeing, beliefs, and personality — and what individualized approaches to 5-MeO-DMT therapy could look like. 🌍 Why This Matters: Mental health, treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and neurodegeneration represent some of the largest unmet needs in global healthcare. 5-MeO-DMT is used in synthetic form at Tandava Retreats due to concerns over species conservation and the sustainability of sourcing the substance at scale — a detail that underscores the serious, methodical thinking Joel brings to this work. The molecule's therapeutic potential is extraordinary, but realizing it requires the kind of rigorous science, business discipline, and ethical leadership that KVI is quietly building. 👤 Expert Background: Founder & CEO of KVI — an ecosystem for discovering the unique potentials of 5-MeO-DMT through research, retreats, and biotech development. Research Collaborator with leading universities including UCL, executing some of the world's first formal neurological studies of the 5-MeO-DMT peak experience. Retreat Pioneer with over a decade of experience curating safe, evidence-informed 5-MeO-DMT experiences for participants worldwide. Biotech Co-Founder developing non-hallucinogenic analogs of 5-MeO-DMT targeting neurodegenerative disease and brain injury. Author and educator — contributing to the psychedelic industry's shift toward rigorous harm reduction, ethical sourcing, and scientific legitimacy. 🎙️ Hosted by Gary Fowler, CEO of GSD Venture Studios — global AI entrepreneur, investor, and innovation leader spotlighting founders navigating the realities of building in the AI era.

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episode Turning an Overlooked Clinical Need into a MedTech Startup with Dr. Richard J. Unger artwork

Turning an Overlooked Clinical Need into a MedTech Startup with Dr. Richard J. Unger

Join Dr. Richard J. Unger, Founder and CEO of RUSKID LLC, for an eye-opening discussion on medical innovation, clinician entrepreneurship, and addressing critical healthcare gaps that hide in plain sight. In high-stakes environments like the operating room and surgical ICU, patient safety depends on continuous, accurate physiological monitoring. Yet, essential clinical concepts can often disappear for decades—leaving clinicians to work around legacy limitations. Drawing on nearly 40 years of medical leadership, including serving as Chief of Staff and Chairman of Anesthesiology at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Co-Director of the Surgical ICU at UC San Diego, Dr. Unger shares the journey of turning a long-overlooked clinical question into a venture-backed medical device startup. 🎯 Insights You’ll Learn: The Overlooked Problem Paradox: How critical medical ideas and safety mechanisms can disappear from clinical practice for over 20 years despite an unresolved clinical need. The Clinician-to-Founder Transition: Why frontline physicians have an unmatched advantage in identifying high-impact clinical problems and turning bedside observations into scalable ventures. Next-Gen Airway Intelligence: How RUSKID is engineering smart airway devices to deliver critical, real-time patient monitoring directly in the operating room. Protecting the Workflow: The design philosophy required to build smart medical hardware that improves patient outcomes without adding friction, cognitive overload, or extra steps for anesthesiologists. From Bedside Insight to IP & Prototypes: The operational steps behind protecting proprietary intellectual property, building multidisciplinary engineering teams, raising capital, and navigating preclinical prototypes. Pathway to Clinical Validation: Navigating the complex regulatory, clinical validation, and hospital commercialization pipelines required to bring new Class II medical devices into standard surgical care. 🌍 Why This Matters: Medical technology often suffers from a fundamental disconnect: engineers build complex diagnostic tools in isolation, while clinicians must manage fast-paced operating room workflows with cumbersome equipment. Dr. Richard Unger is bridging this divide. By leveraging four decades of high-acuity clinical experience, Dr. Unger and the RUSKID team are proving that the best medical innovations do not disrupt workflow—they seamlessly integrate into existing clinical routines to elevate patient safety standards worldwide. 👤 Expert Background: Founder & CEO of RUSKID LLC, a medical technology company developing proprietary smart airway devices designed for advanced operating room patient monitoring. Double Board-Certified Physician in Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology, with nearly 40 years of high-acuity surgical and critical care experience. Former Chief of Staff & Chairman of Anesthesiology at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, leading clinical quality and medical operations. Former Co-Director of the Surgical ICU at UC San Diego, specializing in critical care and complex airway management. 🎙️ Hosted by Gary Fowler, CEO of GSD Venture Studios — global AI entrepreneur, investor, and innovation leader spotlighting founders navigating the realities of building in the AI era. 💡 Perfect For: MedTech founders, anesthesiologists, surgical directors, healthcare venture capital investors, medical device engineers, and clinical entrepreneurs looking to commercialize medical IP. 🚀 Timely Topic: As surgical suites demand higher-fidelity patient monitoring without increasing provider burnout or workflow complexity, smart, integrated medical hardware represents the future of perioperative care. Dr. Richard Unger delivers the exact blueprint for translating bedside clinical needs into viable medical technologies. #MedTech #Anesthesiology #PatientSafety #MedicalDevices #ClinicianFounder #RUSKID #RichardUnger #GaryFowler #GSDVentureStudios

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