When the lift doors open into Christian Angermayer’s penthouse apartment, visitors are greeted, or intimidated, by a large triceratops skull. To the German-born investor, this replica is “cute”: the real skull, which he also owns, is three times the size and would have had to be brought in by crane. “It is so beautiful, I wanted it here . . . it is my favourite dinosaur,” he says. “No, no, it is not to scare people.”
Dinosaur skeletons, which Angermayer works with paleontologists to unearth, are but one of a number of niche interests on show in the expansive, otherwise sleekly modern east London flat — they stretch from the prehistoric to the psychedelic.
Boundlessly energetic, Angermayer grew up in a “very normal family” in a “very small house” in rural Germany, the son of an engineer and a secretary. But ventures as a biotech entrepreneur — his company, Ribopharma, pursued ways to deactivate problematic genes, and merged with the US company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in 2003 — mean that today, he is a billionaire. With his Apeiron Investment Group, he now invests in a range of start-ups, including those developing psychedelics, life-extending treatments and brain implants for people with paralysis. He is also a co-founder of the Enhanced Games, a proposal for an Olympics on steroids — literally — and a true believer in crypto: behind the skull is a bright orange bitcoin-inspired artwork.
Through the door into the main living space, there is a more serene surprise: one of the most sweeping views in London. From the top of the tower, located between Old Street and Angel, Angermayer can see from St Pancras station and the BT Tower in the west to Canary Wharf in the east. “I am a view fetishist,” he laughs.
He bought the place in 2019, attracted by the views rather than the location; a striking backdrop for the work meetings and social gatherings subsequently hosted there. Now, however, the penthouse is a secondary home following a move to Switzerland in the wake of recent UK tax changes.
When Angermayer first moved in, “my main message was, let’s open it up”, he says with a broad smile. He knocked down walls and shrank the guest bedroom to create the study area at the end of the main room; now, while working, he looks down on the London Eye and the river Thames. The only thing dividing the vast space is a 6ft fish tank between the dining table and the sofas. He finds it calming.
The flat, with white walls, grey upholstery and fiddle-leaf figs and palms in concrete pots, is neutral — an unobtrusive background for his more eccentric pieces. Around the edge of the room, sitting against the glass walls, are sideboards with large pots of pink and white orchids, and dozens of silver frames featuring photos of him with his “politician friends”, including former German chancellor Angela Merkel. A couple show him with his boyfriend, who recently moved in.
A bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris, which sits on a plinth near the sofa, was the purchase that kick-started Angermayer’s collection of ancient artefacts — but it also intersects with another of his passions. Angermayer believes that Osiris’s followers were part of a “DMT cult” who derived dimethyltryptamine — a psychedelic — from a local bush. He compares DMT with taking ayahuasca, the South American psychoactive.
On the other side of the sofas, a large stone statue of the Greek goddess Demeter, the mother of Persephone, looks over the room. Her disciples are thought to have taken hallucinogenic trips twice a year at the solstices, Angermayer says. “While tripping ritualistically, they were reliving the story of Persephone,” he says. In other words, symbolically travelling to the underworld and back again. “We would describe it as ‘ego death’,” he says.
This temporary loss of self-identity is thought to be one of the reasons that psychedelics hold promise in treating some mental health disorders. Angermayer’s Berlin-based company Atai Life Sciences, which he founded in 2018, is testing psychedelic compounds in clinical trials for treatment-resistant depression, major depressive disorder and social anxiety disorder. Early results have shown promise for the use of DMT in treatment-resistant depression, they say, and in March Phase 2 clinical trials began. Others in the field are looking at developing psychedelic treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia.
Many public investors have been wary of the biotech market since its peak during Covid. They see psychedelics as being at the risky end of a risky sector, and this nervousness has sent stocks down as much as 90 per cent from their highs. Yet Angermayer believes that the new US administration and its medicines regulator are more “open” to psychedelics, though none of the substances he is interested in are yet approved for use.
“I think the world is really changing” he says, especially attitudes to “the whole topic of human enhancement. And then mental health.” A “rethink” is happening, he believes, that is opening up a broader view of “what is actually an illness, what is a treatable condition” — and looking towards disease prevention, not only cures. Angermayer has high hopes for the new government making the big change that many in the longevity sector have been hoping for: defining “ageing” as a disease, and thus unleashing the potential for the approval of drugs to treat it.
Upstairs are clues to Angermayer’s own wellness regime. A gym filled with weights and exercise machines overlooks a large outdoor deck (and that view again), and there’s a small sauna, which he uses every day. Prioritising sleep is another standard: his bedroom is pitch black and he always wakes up naturally. “My most important thing is that I don’t [have] an alarm clock,” he says. “I try not to have meetings [first thing] in the morning.”
Angermayer also adheres to an intermittent fasting regime, a practice made popular in light of some evidence that it can help delay the effects of ageing. He doesn’t eat before 2pm, aided in part by taking the weight-loss drug and appetite suppressant Ozempic. “I have a certain amount of discipline, and when it’s all sucked up by work, then I’m not healthy. So Ozempic helps me as outsourced discipline,” he says.
Outside and up some steps, a tarpaulin is draped over a plunge pool that is opened up in the summer. A statue stands with wings outstretched, as if ready for take off. It is a replica of “The Nike of Samothrace”, which is housed in the Louvre, showing the Greek goddess without a head but perpetually in motion.
Angermayer was never interested in sport until he became involved in the Enhanced Games, created by Australian tech entrepreneur Aron D’Souza as “the ultimate demonstration of what the human body can do”. Announced last year, early backers include venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Competitors are allowed — nay, encouraged — to use performance-enhancing substances banned from conventional competitions.
Though the proposed games have been criticised by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a “dangerous and irresponsible concept”, Angermayer sees his investment as part of a strategy to fund activities that could blossom if — or when — our time is freed up by artificial intelligence. “I believe over the next 10 years, we’re all going to stop working. It’s my deep, deep belief [but] it doesn’t mean that we [won’t be] doing anything.”
He paints a positive picture of how one could spend these hours, but accepts that AI scares many people. “The fear of the unknown is really bringing the worst out of people,” he says, but “I think psychedelics can take away the fear . . . help people ease into a new kind of set-up on a psychological level”.
His own next level may, in fact, be to move down — and give up penthouse life. With the obvious hazard of a crate of dinosaur eggs by the balcony, Angermayer admits his apartment is not set up for kids. He fantasises about replicating his simple beginnings for his future children. “My childhood was so amazing that I think I’m overthinking it, how to recreate that, and obviously you can’t. It’s different,” he muses.
Then again, perhaps he will just “live in a castle or something . . . and build a playground”, he says. Though one could argue that’s exactly what he already has.
Hannah Kuchler is the FT’s global pharmaceutical editor
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