as if that's a guaranteed win. The low hanging fruit was to recreate what is already in nature. Creating something brand new never seen before would be a greenfield project that I'm sure most of bigPharma is not a fan of.
I'm not certain I catch your drift - I'm saying the RnD work they did to synthesize COM360 or whatever it's called is probably more expensive than using known means to synthesize/extract psylocibin (as psylocybin was first synthesized in the 50's)
Sounds to me as if you're now suggesting researching a new way to make a synthetic drug where before I read it as researching a new drug nobody has found yet
Edit0: for a more thorough look: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/18/3/380