In January, we reported on billionaire investor Antonio Gracias’ bid to take control of embattled MDMA drug developer Lykos Therapeutics. Now, Gracias appears to be teaming up with an unlikely co-investor.

Psychedelic Alpha understands that the Musk associate and DOGE advisor is joined by an even deeper-pocketed individual: Sir Christopher Hohn.

The British decabillonaire investment manager and philanthropist helms TCI Fund Management, the second largest hedge fund in the UK and among the top half-dozen in the world, with over $60bn in assets under management.

Hohn is a prominent figure in British society, having been knighted in 2014 “for services to UK philanthropy and international development”, and in that same year being ordered to pay half-a-billion dollars in a divorce settlement, the largest of its kind in the UK at the time. Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also worked as a partner at TCI under Hohn.

But he’s not exactly a household name, perhaps owing to his preference to maintain his private life. While he might not be well-known among the average Brit, his reputation precedes him in the City of London and on Wall Street. There, he is known not only as the founder of one of the world’s best-performing hedge funds, but also as a ruthless activist investor.

That activist streak has seen him and his firm overthrow the leadership of German stock exchange company Deutsche Börse, take legal action against the Government of India, and pen letters to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai calling for sweeping changes at his companies. It’s also earned him the title of ‘Europe’s most feared investor’.

Aside from his apparent skill in navigating the market and turning around companies, Hohn is also a prolific philanthropist.

While cynics have suggested that his charitable endeavours are primarily a means of reputation management, it is a fact that a substantial portion of TCI’s management fees flow directly into the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). That ‘venture philanthropy’ model has seen over $6 billion in assets accrue under the foundation, which has deployed large amounts of cash to projects and issues related to children, reproductive health, and tropical diseases, among other things.

Hohn also has a clear interest in the climate crisis, being the largest donor to the polarising protest group Extinction Rebellion.

But how did Hohn become interested in stepping in to save Lykos?

While Hohn has not made any public proclamations or appearances regarding psychedelics, like those we might see from a Brin or a Musk, a little digging does reveal a clear intrigue into consciousness, spirituality, and related topics.

With his second wife, Kylie Hohn, Chris founded the foundation LightEn. (His firm, TCI Fund Management, is the primary donor to the foundation, though its spiritual education content and programmes brought in £1.5m in revenue last year.)

In its own words: “LightEn is an educational foundation. Our work is focused on signposting pathways that have the potential to raise consciousness and help humanity embody the highest levels of love and wisdom we all hold at our core.”

It has three primary pathways to that goal:

• a free library of educational content (“Library of Light”);
• a global network of centres “which offer in-person experiential programmes to enable soul-infused action”;
• and, “a grant programme which supports the work of individuals and organisations holding visions in alignment with our own.”

The library’s categories include ‘science and spirituality, mysticism, ‘energy healing’, ‘conscious evolution’, esotericism, and so on. It does include two psychedelics-related texts, too: a work on reincarnation by Christopher Bache, who served on the Advisory Council of the Stan Grof’s GROF Legacy Training and wrote extensively on psychedelics including LSD, and Ram Dass’ Be Here Now.

LightEn’s centre in Mallorca, Spain, teaches “the tools of Inner Alchemy”, a five-year programme devised by Zulma Reyo. A second LightEn centre, based at Action, North Carolina, is set to open this year.

The group has also published the work of Leslie Temple-Thurston, “a teacher of enlightenment, who has wholeheartedly dedicated her life to inspiring and guiding people towards their spiritual awakening.” Her work has been supported by LightEn’s grant to CoreLight, an organisation she runs along with Brad Laughlin. CoreLight’s mission includes spiritual training, inspired teachings, and sacred activism, all to ‘awaken the global heart’.

There are clear affinities between the philosophies endorsed by the Hohns’ LigthEn foundation, then, and the more spiritually-inclined side of the psychedelics field. Even Reyo’s model of ‘Inner Alchemy’ is reminiscent of the ‘Inner Healing Intelligence’ cited in MAPS’ materials.

And so, it appears that Lykos is now included in those organisations that have visions in alignment with the Hohns.

It’s remarkable how odd of a pairing Hohn and Gracias appear to be, however. Hohn’s philanthropy has supported a controversial climate change protest group, his CIFF is among the largest private funders of reproductive health and is a major funder of efforts to manage tropical and infectious diseases, and he has a clear interest in international development. CIFF has also worked with the Gates Foundation and given large sums to The Clinton Foundation.

Contrast this with Gracias’ incredibly close ties with Musk, who – via DOGE and his role working alongside Trump – appears more aligned with defunding international development projects (as in the case of USAID’s dissolution), downplaying the climate crisis and endorsing a “Drill Baby Drill” policy, steering the NIH away from a focus on infectious diseases, and limiting access to reproductive health¹.

But some people close to the deal think that, aside from his deep pockets, these starkly different worldviews are a feature, not a bug. They believe Hohn could act as a counterbalance to Gracias, whose involvement in the deal has already raised the hackles of some in the field. It certainly seems, at least on the face of it, that Hohn would be more aligned with Lykos’ founding vision.

Aside from remaining questions around the specifics of the deal, the most substantial question might be around which vision for the company becomes dominant this year.

Will the company return to its roots of prioritising public benefit, the inextricable role of psychotherapy in its protocol, radical transparency when it comes to publishing communications with FDA, welcoming Rick Doblin back into its midst, and an ambition to do things differently? Or will it double-down on a path of playing by the pharma rulebook, simplifying the narrative around its protocol, and generally walking and talking more like a conventional biopharma company?

Another question is the extent to which Lykos might seek to capitalise on the present political moment, or even a political route to approval of its MDMA candidate. That could see Lykos allies with ties to the new administration look for concessions from the FDA.

Such a route raises all sorts of other questions, however, including whether prescribers, practitioners, and payors would feel comfortable delivering and reimbursing a therapy that might appear to have benefitted from political favours in its approval process. That could create commercial headaches for Lykos which—given its shaky patent position—can only bank on a half-dozen years of exclusivity if and when it comes to market.

An accelerated approval with major restrictions could also cause commercial headaches for Lykos. Launching to a sub-population, or with restrictive postmarketing requirements, could eat into that short window of opportunity to recoup costs and even turn a profit. The other option, of course, is to do the work up-front, including an additional Phase 3, and aim to get a more substantial approval in a few years. There might be middle-ground options here, however, such as allowing access to the investigational therapy through bodies like the VA ahead of a conventional FDA approval.

As aforementioned, the specifics of any deal are yet to be seen, but you can be sure we are following this story closely.