Canadian entrepreneur gifts $5 million to help create psychedelic research centre for mental health
CTV
Canadian tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Sanjay Singhal gives $5 million to help launch a new psychedelic psychotherapy research centre for mental health at Toronto’s University Health Network.
“When I went manic, I would make bad decisions ... spend money unreasonably,” he said. “Up until age 38, my life was a roller coaster.”
Today, Singhal is 56 and on a mission to transform mental health care. He is the philanthropist behind Canada’s first psychedelic psychotherapy research centre for mental health at Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN). Starting with a $5 million donation made through the Nikean Foundation that he founded, Singhal hopes researchers at the centre can unlock the potential of psychedelic medicine and find answers on how psilocybin and a so-called “God molecule” can help transform mental health care.
The founder of several start-ups, including Audiobooks.com, Singhal spoke to CTV National News about his struggles with mental health even as he built several successful businesses.
“I was very aware of what mental illness can do,” he said in his very first on-air interview about the subject and his personal struggles with it.
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