Big Pharma Wants To Turn Toad Venom Into The Next Blockbuster Drug

Interesting antidepressants, anxiety, big pharma, psychedelics admin July 27, 2026 0 Comments

Big Pharma Wants To Turn Toad Venom Into The Next Blockbuster Drug

Big Pharma is making a high-stakes bet that their next cash grab will come from an unlikely source: the psychedelic venom of toads.

Pharmaceutical companies are pouring billions into a drug called 5-MeO-DMT, often known as bufo, a powerful psychedelic compound that is naturally found in the poison secreted from the Colorado River toad. Its growing popularity in Mexican clinics has caught the eye of major drugmakers and investors, who hope a synthetic version could eventually become an FDA-approved treatment, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The drug is illegal in the United States, but veterans who spoke with WSJ and have tried other mental health treatments, such as therapy or SSRIs, said ingesting it is “a last resort.” Once ingested, the drug takes its user through a very intense experience that can include “physical shaking, loud noises, and on rare occasions, prolonged dissociation.” About five percent of people who take it say that the experience is “too intense,” according to WSJ.

Typical anti-depressants already come with a host of serious negative side effects. Harvard Health Publishing explains that some of the temporary effects could be “insomnia, skin rashes, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach upset, nausea, or diarrhea.” On the more severe side, taking SSRIs can lead to “reduced blood clotting capacity,” which leaves patients at risk of internal bleeding.

If these are the risks with FDA-approved medications, the drawbacks could be even more severe from regularly taking psychedelics, sometimes mixed with other medications.

UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics details that taking the toad venom alone could lead to feeling “empty or void” as well as experiencing “profound terror.” When taken in combination with other antidepressants, the mix can lead to “abnormally high body temperature and, in some cases, death.”

Doctor David Lankri, who is an associate research scientist at Columbia University, told WSJ the drug is “the most potent, bizarre, and profound psychedelic out there.” He highlighted that it targets two different receptors of serotonin, similar to other SSRIs on the market. (RELATED: FDA Panel Approves Several ‘Biohacking’ Drugs Amid Growing Social Media Demand)

The toad licking drug trip has been a cultural trope since the 1980s, when Ken Nelson journaled about his experience smoking the extracted venom, according to WSJ. But these days, tech and podcast bros and CEOs, such as Open-AI’s Sam Alman and co-founder of Google Sergey Brin, are becoming the main consumers and proponents for the drug, NPR Podcasts reported.

Biotech companies are racing to cash in on this new market by commercializing synthetic 5-MeO-DMT, arguing its unusually short duration could make it more practical for clinical use than other psychedelics, according to WSJ. Unlike Vilazodone, Buspirone or LSD, whose effects can last for several hours, the strong effects of 5-MeO-DMT generally wear off in roughly 30 minutes, potentially allowing patients to complete treatment sessions in a fraction of the time.

Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant best known for its blockbuster GLP-1 medications used to treat diabetes and obesity, has expanded into the psychedelic space and recently acquired AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion, according to Morning Brew. The deal gave Lilly access to the drug analog that AtaiBeckley was promoting, which is the only one that has been given “breakthrough designation by the FDA,” according to WSJ.

Srinivas Rao, the co-founder of AtaiBeckley, told the WSJ that psychedelics offer “rapid onset” and “durability.”

According to Psychology Today, early research suggests 5-MeO-DMT could produce rapid antidepressant effects by temporarily altering patterns of brain activity linked to depression. These benefits are also drawing attention from public officials who believe that approved medicines aren’t producing as much of an improvement.

“This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting. And we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months,” said Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. in June 2025.

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which would expand access and research into psychedelic therapies. (RELATED: How Trump Admin’s Psychedelic Drug Research Push Could Shake Up US Mental Healthcare System)

Matt Zorn, deputy general counsel for health and human services, told WSJ that despite support, 5-MeO-DMT can lead to negative experiences and side effects.

“I think that the evidence is like sufficient for approval,” Zorn said. “But it’s like, how do these things perform out in the wild is gonna be like a super important thing for us to understand.”

Since Trump entered office in January 2025, biotech startups developing psychedelic therapies have seen their stock prices surge. AtaiBeckley’s has surged 253%, according to WSJ.

Rao told WSJ that estimates for the market value for an approved drug like 5-MeO-DMT would be “several billion dollars.”