Despite their reputation, there is growing evidence that psychedelics can have a positive effect on patients suffering from mental disorders like depression, anxiety and PTSD. Cheddar News speaks with Dr. Daniel Karlin, Chief Medical Officer of MindMed, a neuro-pharmaceutical company developing psychedelic medicines, about the state of the research. 

Studies into Psychedelic Medicine Explained

psychedelic drugs have come a long way since their hallucinogenic heydays with research showing that they could alleviate post traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction. And while the substances are mostly banned by the federal government therapies with M. D. M. A. Better known by its nickname, ecstasy could receive approval for certain treatments from US regulators by next year with psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms not far behind in the process. So joining me now is Dr daniel Carlin, chief medical officer. And mine met a neuro pharmaceutical company developing psychedelic medicines. Dr Carlin. Thanks so much for coming on. I know that there's a lot of research currently going on in the field of psychedelic medicine. So for our viewers who might be unfamiliar explaining your own words where this stands? Hey. Yeah thanks so much for having me on. And obviously you mentioned a few of the advances that we're paying attention to in the field. But really what we're talking about here are a couple of different classes of drugs. So the classical psychedelics like psilocybin that you mentioned, LSD that we're working on masculine D. M. T. Is one set of drugs that that are being researched right now. There are others that are adjacent to the classical psychedelics like M. D. M. A. That you also mentioned that have different mechanisms of action but also offer a lot of potential. And you know what these drugs have in common is that There was a period of research that was done in them as they were discovered and developed in the in the 50s 60s and so on. But the uh subsequently they were made illegal and research on them ground to all. And I think what we've seen over the past few years that's so exciting is that we're now able to get back to doing some important research on these drugs that showed so much promise in the initial research before they were banned. And now have continued to show a lot of promise in a set of studies, some of which you're showing here that suggests that they could be useful against a whole wide range of conditions. So it is, I think worth noting that the company that you work for mine met is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ. Of course legality is a question. In terms of the research. What exactly is legal right now? Here's a year to date chart of course the stocks down 66% along with the broader market which is under perform especially for some of these more growth oriented companies, viewers can see it there. But going back to the legality, doctor, what is legal right now. So all of the substances I just mentioned are illegal for folks to to buy and use outside of approved research. What we're able to do is by working with F. D. A. And D. E. A. Uh to legally manufacture access and conduct research on these. So again, outside of a pru research. These substances are almost across the board illegal that there's some local laws and things that allow them. But they're certainly federally illegal. But what we're able to do as a pharmaceutical company is work with the appropriately appropriate regulatory agencies to legally conduct research on the substances. And where is the research leading you? What is next? Well, we've we've dosed a patient in a phase two of LSD for generalized anxiety disorder and will continue to conduct that research expecting the study to read out in the second half of next year. So that's really our most exciting and most advanced project right now. You also mentioned M. D. M. A. We are watching maps as they progress there. M. D. M. A. Research for PTSD and we have an M. D. M. A. An anti armor. So one half of the mixture of MDMA that we are in the process of doing pre clinical work so that we can begin clinical work next year for the treatment of autism spectrum disorder. Interesting is it safe? I think that might be viewers biggest question, is it safe to potentially use one of these drugs to treat one of these conditions? Well, we sure think so. And all of the evidence that we've been able to acquire to date confirms that by all available metrics these drugs are incredibly safe to use in the right circumstances with the right safety monitoring and at doses that have been carefully selected so well manufactured. Well dosed, carefully supervised administration of these drugs Sure seems safe. How close are we to seeing an option on the market, something that people can easily access? Well, as you said, the leader here, the front runner is M. D. M. A for PTSD. And though I don't have any anything that I can say about that, that isn't available to the general public because of course that's a different company there. Uh we expect that there's a submission potentially this year or early next year for M. D. M. A. For PTSD. Which could lead to an approval uh next year, the year. So, you know, that that's not our research but we sure hope for the best for that submission. Has the pandemic changed the acceptance of psychedelics at all? I mean, certainly when I hear the word anxiety, I think a lot of people across a variety of age ranges and generations have probably felt anxiety according to reports that we've seen over these past several years. Kind of uncertain as to where things head from here. Just the general environment out there. Doctor, how has that impacted some of the research that you're doing at mine med. I think we could say that there have been impacts in a couple of directions. So the pandemic caused medicine to have to focus pretty exclusively on covid for quite some time And that slowed research in a number of different areas because hospitals were overloaded for a while and then uh you know, conducting research in the covid environment could be really difficult. But on the other hand, as you say, uh the pandemic has led to a new focus and sort of I think a new willingness for folks to talk about the extent to which they experienced anxiety on a daily basis and maybe even have an anxiety disorder. So that that both national but also global focus on anxiety, I think has fueled both efforts towards developing new, more effective treatments and also has has developed a sort of a sense of willingness to accept the potential for new treatments. So, so both positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on our work. But moving forward, we're extremely optimistic about our ability to conduct research that will enable us to bring LSD for generalized anxiety disorder to market. All right, Dr Daniel Carlin, chief medical officer at Mine Med, a public traded company doctor. Thank you.