Psychedelics News September 2020

One psychedelics company reaches the 3-comma club, another releases the second large app. Psychedelics can help with pain, demoralization (for AIDS survivors), and eating disorders – as preliminary research is showing. And the money keeps flowing towards research with the launch of UC Berkeley’s own psychedelic research lab and Dr Bronner’s continued commitment to the cause.

First Week of September

Research

There was widespread reporting on a study by Jan Ramaekers and colleagues (supported by The Beckley Foundation) on the analgesic (pain-killing) effects of a micro/mini-dose of LSD (20 mcg). What stood out was the comparison to opioids and how this opens the door to seeing of even here psychedelics may offer a better solution.

NGOs and advocacy

Dr. Bronner aims to educate people via their new ‘Heal Soul’ campaign/label. Next to information on one of their popular products, the company also highlights the $3 million it has committed to psychedelics research (e.g. MAPS) and advocacy in 2020.

On the other side of the globe Mind Medicine Australia is making waves by submitting paperwork to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA. Together with the earlier news on the expanded access for psilocybin in Canada, Usona‘s expanded access, and more good news, the tide in (de)criminalization of psychedelics seems to be turning.

Corporate Corner

May we be taking psychedelics in sublingual strips in the future? That is what Lucid News investigates in their reporting on Revive Therapeutics and Cybin (working with IntelGenx). Psychedelic Science Review also reports on the planned dose-finding trial by Cybin. The trial should shed some light on the (lower) dosage needed via this route.

(Re)packaging psychedelics may not always be the best way to go. Spravato was again rejected in the UK for being too costly (£10k per course of therapy, versus much lower costs of other ketamine treatments).

Psychedelics may become useful not only in managing pain (see ‘Research’ above), Revive will enter into a clinical trial to study psilocybin for the treatment of methamphetamine use disorder.

Compass Pathways has filed to go public and will raise north of $100 million by doing so. This is likely to highlight psychedelics (business) to a much wider audience than currently is exposed to it. The prospectus does highlight the challenges they face in training staff, competition from others (e.g. Usona), and regulatory hurdles to overcome.

More News/Links

Second & Third Week of September

Research

There was a tread on Twitter about Hutten et al. (2020) where the need for publishing ambiguous results (with a non-ambiguous title) should be done and how it should be done. The discussion was instigated by Matthew Baggott.

UC Berkeley launches a (small) center for psychedelic science and education (of therapists). Notably, author of ‘How To Change Your Mind‘, Michael Pollan is one of the founding members. The funding ($1.25 million) is provided by an anonymous donor.

And a clinical trial at Maryland Oncology Hematology will start to study psilocybin-assisted therapy (n=30, 25mg) for depression in cancer patients. This will be done in partnership with COMPASS.

NGO & Advocacy

More and more patients in Canada are getting section 56 exemptions to use psilocybin for end-of-life anxiety. The waiting time, which initially was 100 days, has now dropped to 10 workdays. This is made possible by the great work of TheraPsil.

To get a better grip on where the research stands at this moment I can recommend listening to Tim Ferriss‘ podcast, specifically the episode ‘The Psychedelic News Hour‘ (which soon will become its own podcast). What stood out to me was the focus, already, on scaling up the accessibility and the need to go slow. To both prepare therapists as quickly as possible, but not to want to go too fast and deliver sub-optimal care (and thus outcomes) when psychedelics (MDMA and psilocybin in particular) become more widely available.

And just in before this report was finished, Ann Arbor has decriminalized psychedelics (via DoubleBlind). This is now the third city in the US to do so, following Oakland and Santa Cruz.

Corporate Corner

The second week of September brings some more news from Canada, where HAVN starts trading on the stock exchange and has (also) been granted section 56 exemption to study psilocybin.

That was not all that happened in the corporate corner as COMPASS raises over $100 million in an IPO on the Nasdaq and is now valued at $1.1 billion (after a surge in stock valuation). MindMed doesn’t want to stay behind and also hopes to (up-)list on the Nasdaq.

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Fourth Week of September

Research

This month has seen quite a lot of research being published (September Research Blog). The last week features an open-label feasibility study with psilocybin-assisted group(!) therapy for demoralized AIDS survivors. In the study they find significant improvements in demoralization scores, paving a way for further (double-blind, placebo-controlled) studies into this disorder of mental health.

Looked at in a positive way, this study highlights the variety of mental health disorders that psychedelics may help with. From cancer-related anxiety to treatment-resistant depression, psilocybin to MDMA seem to help many get unstuck. Taking another perspective, one could also say that it’s a shame that we’ve divided every indication into different little boxes, and need to study (phase I, II, etc) each one separately. Let’s just hope that if psilocybin and the like become available to therapists, they can soon be used for more indications than originally indicated.

Taking a slightly wider berth, I came across the following headline ‘New Stanford Medicine depression treatment has 90% success rate, study finds‘ (The Stanford Daily). Fully expecting a psychedelic-assisted treatment, I was surprised to learn that the study used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Although it was a small study (non-blind, n=21), this may be another promising way to help with (treatment-resistant) depression.

NGO & Advocacy

The formation of the Psychedelic Medicine Association (PMA) falls right in between the NGO and corporate corners. The goal of the public benefit corporation is to provide education and informational (read: promotional?) tools for those (wanting to) work with psychedelics. It is founded by companies that include both Field Trip & The Conscious Fund (for-profit) and Unlimited Sciences & Ayahuasca Foundation. It will officially launch on September 29.

If you have some time to spare, then take time to see what MAPS has been up to in their Summer 2020 Bulletin.

Finally, there has been lots of discussion around the decriminalization of psychedelics. Now psychiatrists are also joining the conversation (opposing it). They cite health reasons and that we don’t know enough yet, but one could argue that is so because of draconian laws and restrictions. Maybe some of the critique is right, but it does feel like the establishment not embracing change.

Corporate Corner

Not wanting to stay behind on Field Trip, now Mindleap also has an app available. This one aims not to (now) only be an app for during your trip, but helps you connect to mental health professionals (i.e. making a telehealth marketplace of sorts). The app will be available on September 30th.

On the other side of the pond, AWAKN keeps adding impressive names to its scientific board. Now Michael and Ann Mithoefer have joined, two of the leading MDMA-assisted psychotherapists (trainers).

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