Andrew Kruegel, Kures president and co-founder (Columbia Tech Ventures via Vimeo)
After psilocybin and ketamine, a new biotech comes along developing a drug Scott Gottlieb fought
Andrew Kruegel was six years into his chemistry work at Columbia University, when, one day in August 2016, he learned he might have only 30 days before the government made him destroy his research.
Kruegel had been studying kratom, a leaf long used in Southeast Asia as a stimulant or for pain. It had opioid-like properties, he found, but seemed to offer pain relief without the addictive potential or respiratory side effects of traditional opioids — a riddle that might help illuminate how human opioid receptors work.
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