Her mission is to legalize therapies that use psychedelic plant substances and neuro-tech

Health is a recurring theme in Stacey Wallin's career. In 2012 she co-founded LifeBooster, a tech company that helps employers assess and address workplace injury risks. It evolved from SmartFit, an employee wellness solution that won Wallin's team a prize at SFU's Beedie School of Business, where she obtained a BBA with a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Credit: Tanya Goehring on location at Leisure Center

Stacey Wallin, 29

CO-FOUNDER AND COO
NUMINUS

Life Story: Health is a recurring theme in Stacey Wallin’s career. In 2012 she co-founded LifeBooster, a tech company that helps employers assess and address workplace injury risks. It evolved from SmartFit, an employee wellness solution that won Wallin’s team a prize at SFU‘s Beedie School of Business, where she obtained a BBA with a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship.

In 2016, seriously ill herself, Wallin stepped down as LifeBooster CEO. The following year she joined the BC Tech Association, where she led the department that helped entrepreneurs increase revenue from $1 million to more than $50 million. “I wanted to use my entrepreneurship experience and my finance background to maximize the good that I could,” she explains. Wallin was an investment adviser at several firms, most recently Mackie Research Capital, from 2009-16.

Last summer, she and co-founder Payton Nyquvest, who also has a finance background, began a new venture. It formally launched in February as Numinus. The company’s mission is to legalize pathways to alternative therapies using psychedelic plant substances and neuro-tech to treat substance addiction and mental health issues.

Bottom Line: Numinus is acquiring a clinic in Vancouver and building a facility in Squamish, expected to be operational by mid-2019, with domestic expansion planned for 2020. Partners include the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Canada, Salvation Botanicals and the UBC department of medicine. Addiction expert Gabor Maté and ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna are advisers.

 

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