Thiel backed COMPASS Pathways which got breakthrough status last year. The Usona Institute, which just got breakthrough status this month, also for a use of psilocybin, is to my knowledge not supported by Thiel.
> Back in late 2018, the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy status to the ongoing work from COMPASS Pathways investigating psilocybin, the key psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. A large, multi-center Phase 2 trial spanning the US, UK and Europe is currently underway testing a variety of dosing strategies.
> This new FDA Breakthrough Therapy approval focuses on a seven-site, Phase 2 trial currently underway in the United States. Coordinated by a non-profit research organization called the Usona Institute, the trial is exploring the antidepressant properties of a single psilocybin dose in treating patients with major depressive disorder.
> “From generations of practitioners and researchers before us, we have received knowledge about these substances, their risks, and ways to use them constructively,” reads the statement. “In turn, we accept the call to use that knowledge for the common good and to share freely whatever related knowledge we may discover or develop.”
> It has been signed by 104 individual scientists, scholars, and practitioners, 21 research and service organizations, including MAPS, Heffter, Usona, and 12 psychedelic societies and integration circles. Compass has not signed.
Given Thiel's track record I think it's not very likely he is doing this for a "freedom of choice" but more as "Opportunity to get richer".