A while ago, I had a chat with Phil Campbell, who just arrived in New York after dining with royalty., and he told me something extraordinary.

We started talking about cognitive enhancement — taking drugs to improve your cognitive skills. Of course, drugs for conditions such as ADHD and narcolepsy have been used by some people for some time, but data on their efficacy are scarce and not well controlled. The fascinating thing is that it seems that Phil heard from a reliable source that, if you wanted, you could set up a clinical trial specifically designed for a putative cognitive enhancer here in the USA. In other words, the FDA would not get on your way if your clinical trial was not for a drug aimed at curing disease, but designed to enhance your natural abilities.

I’m frankly surprised about it and wonder if this is really the case. Can anybody out there confirm or deny this? And if this is true, what would be a reliable endpoint in a trial of a cognitive enhancer? Maybe that’s why you don’t hear about companies going after this dream; because one doesn’t have a meaningful endpoint.

One thing I can tell you: the day we have a safe cognitive enhancer, I’ll be the first one to buy it.