About us
Why we exist
Several years ago our co-founders, George Goldsmith and Ekaterina Malievskaia, experienced the painful effects of depression within their own family. They discovered first-hand how hard it can be to find adequate mental health care for a loved one, and met many other patients and families who felt similarly helpless.
Motivated to find a new approach to mental health care, together with third co-founder Lars Christian Wilde, they started COMPASS with a commitment to putting patients at the heart of the company’s purpose.
At COMPASS, our vision is for a world of mental wellbeing. Every one of us is committed to discovering and developing new therapies that will help patients and their families, and ease the burden on our overstretched healthcare systems. For too many people, mental health care today isn’t good enough. We are determined to change that.
Backed by leading experts in medicine, mental health, business, and academia, our first major initiative is developing psilocybin therapy through late-stage clinical trials in Europe and North America for people with treatment-resistant depression. Read more about our science.
Our values
We have put a lot of thought into the kind of organisation we want to be, and make every decision with our four values in mind. We see them as four promises that define who we are, what we do, and how we do it.
- Our work is grounded in our co-founders’ personal experiences with mental health suffering.
- We consider the perspectives of patients, families and careers as crucial and use them to inform our work.
- We will make the solutions we develop as widely accessible and affordable as possible.
- We adhere to the highest standards of intellectual and scientific integrity.
- We share important information promptly, and publish clinical trial results openly, so as to inspire and accelerate the development of new treatments.
- We will address unmet needs by developing new substances, therapies and psychoactive care pathways, and exploring innovative technologies and regulatory approaches.
- We are committed to the continuous development of our people and practices.
- We develop our research approach through extensive collaboration with scientists, clinicians, patients, regulators and payers.
- We help advance research by sharing our products and knowledge with qualified academic sites.
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Compassion
Our aim in everything we do is to reduce mental health challenges and empower patients.
- Our work is grounded in our co-founders’ personal experiences with mental health suffering.
- We consider the perspectives of patients, families and careers as crucial and use them to inform our work.
- We will make the solutions we develop as widely accessible and affordable as possible.
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Trust
We are open and honest in what we say, write and do.
- We adhere to the highest standards of intellectual and scientific integrity.
- We share important information promptly, and publish clinical trial results openly, so as to inspire and accelerate the development of new treatments.
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Innovation
We seek to transform lives through innovation.
- We will address unmet needs by developing new substances, therapies and psychoactive care pathways, and exploring innovative technologies and regulatory approaches.
- We are committed to the continuous development of our people and practices.
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Collaboration
We believe we will have the greatest impact through listening to and working with others.
- We develop our research approach through extensive collaboration with scientists, clinicians, patients, regulators and payers.
- We help advance research by sharing our products and knowledge with qualified academic sites.
Our approach
How we operate as a business is as important to us as the science we pursue. We are motivated by what is right for patients, and by the need to advance research – on our own and in collaboration with others.
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We will ensure our therapies are accessible and affordable to all who might be helped by them
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We work to the highest standards of scientific rigour and integrity
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We are committed to collaborating with others to advance science that could lead to improved patient outcomes
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We publish all clinical study results, positive and negative, and encourage publication of all results from independent studies that use our psilocybin
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We develop our clinical research programme using recommended scientific processes from regulatory agencies