Not that long ago psychedelics were considered dangerous, and only enjoyed recreationally by a fringe element of society. Today, researchers are looking at drugs like psilocybin to develop treatments for depression, PTSD, addiction, and anxiety. This episode features guests steeped in the world of psychedelics who are finding new ways to treat mental health.
Not that long ago psychedelics were considered dangerous, and only enjoyed recreationally by a fringe element of society. Today, researchers are looking at drugs like psilocybin to develop treatments for depression, PTSD, addiction, and anxiety. This episode features guests steeped in the world of psychedelics who are finding new ways to treat mental health.
Guests:
Dr. Frank Wiegand, Chief Medical Officer, Beckley Psytech
Kurt Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Delix Therapeutics
Clara Burtenshaw, Co-founder and Partner, Neo Kuma Ventures
Speaker 1 (00:06):
We're in the midst of a global renaissance of psychedelic research. Psychedelic psychotherapy is showing great promise for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, depression, social anxiety, substance abuse and alcoholism, and suicide.
Theresa Brady (00:26):
It is estimated that one in five people in the US experiences mental illness. For many of them, existing medications work, but there are still far too many patients who don't get the help they need from currently available medications. Now, there's exciting new research that taps into something that's been around for a long time, psychedelics. Surprisingly, there's a lot less shock and resistance to the idea that mind-altering drugs can improve mental health. New interest from investors, the FDA, and drug companies is evidence of this exciting new development. Our guests today will talk about how these psychedelic treatments work and why psychedelic drugs aren't just for hippies anymore. I'm executive producer Theresa Brady, and you are listening to I am BIO.
(01:35):
It was not that long ago when psychedelics were considered dangerous and only enjoyed recreationally by a fringe element of society. Today, researchers are looking at drugs like psilocybin in new ways, and there is hope that people suffering from conditions such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety might benefit from new applications of these drugs. On today's episode, our guests are steeped in the world of psychedelics. From R&D to investment, they are developing alternative treatments for mental health.
Frank Wiegand (02:09):
My name is Frank Wiegand. I'm the Chief Medical Officer of Beckley Psytech.
Theresa Brady (02:14):
Frank's company, Beckley Psytech, is a small biopharmaceutical company based in the UK. It is working to develop what he calls neuropsychiatric solutions for patients involving psychedelic drugs. Frank paints a picture of the current unmet need for patients suffering from mental illness.
Frank Wiegand (02:37):
Illnesses like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and others are extremely prevalent conditions and usually they are lifelong diseases, which is quite a high amount of disability compared to some of the other diseases. About one in four people suffer from neurological and psychiatric disorders, and the cost of treating these global mental illnesses is expected to rise to 6 trillion by 2030. The current methods of treating these conditions aren't always effective and it's estimated that about a third of patients diagnosed with major depression will not adequately respond to current treatments, leading to a condition called treatment resistant depression. It's therefore important to develop new treatment modalities that bring more patients into remission for a longer duration of time.
Theresa Brady (03:28):
Frank's background as a neurologist led him to pursue developing unconventional ways to address a growing problem. The data is compelling.
Frank Wiegand (03:38):
That's now high quality data from well-designed, randomized controlled, and double-blind studies demonstrating that psychedelic treatments combined with psychological support and psychotherapy have the potential to bring patients into remission or substantially alleviate symptoms quite rapidly. In this context, it's important to explore these compounds further and hopefully, they can bring a lot of patients out of these treatment conditions. This could potentially be quite exciting and good news for millions of people suffering.
Theresa Brady (04:13):
Today, we also talk with Kurt Rasmussen, the Chief Scientific Officer for Delix Therapeutics. He describes the global mental health crisis and why alternative treatments could mitigate it.
Kurt Rasmussen (04:26):
Probably billions of people on the planet experience some type of mental health issue. It's hard to get an exact number because it's often unreported, but too high is the real answer. Too many. Psychedelics are considered a breakthrough treatment because of their rapidity of action and their long duration of effect. They can have effects within 24 hours that can last for days, weeks, months, and that's a big improvement on the type of medications we have for mental health at the current time. Typically, what we have now takes weeks to kick into gear and only a subset of people are getting relief from their suffering.
Theresa Brady (05:06):
Pharmaceutical researchers and innovators are motivated to develop treatments that work better and faster with fewer, if any, side effects. This promises relief for millions of people who are suffering without effective remedies today. Here's Frank again.
Frank Wiegand (05:23):
I worked for the last 20 years in the industry. I have developed mainly for Janssen, so for Johnson and Johnson, a lot of neuropsychiatric drugs. A lot of them have failed unfortunately, but that's the business we are in. During this time, I also worked on the clinical development team of Esketamine, which is not a psychedelic drug, but it's an associative drug, and I saw firsthand in the trials that we conducted how powerful new treatment modalities can be for patients. In this program, we saw patients with treatment resistant depression going into a remission quite rapidly and to quite an extent. So, I joined a small biopharmaceutical company, Beckley Psytech, as the Chief Medical Officer and now armed with all the knowledge and experience, I want to bring more of these compounds to market. So, it's my personal passion as a neurologist to help alleviate the suffering.
Theresa Brady (06:22):
Researchers are taking different approaches to using psychedelics for mental health treatment. For example, Kurt's company, Delix Therapeutics, is exploring the benefits of removing the hallucinogenic effects of these drugs.
Kurt Rasmussen (06:37):
We're taking the fun out of the fungi. I think what we'll be doing is making the compounds, the psychedelics so to speak, more accessible. They won't be psychedelics anymore. They won't be causing hallucinations, but keeping the efficacy. In that way, more people will be able to take them because the psychedelic's exciting and wonderful and lots of potential. But there are certain people, patients, that probably should not or will not take them. For example, a patient with schizophrenia or psychotic symptoms, it's probably best they not take a psychedelic hallucinogen. Another example would be a patient with Alzheimer's or dementia. A reaction to a psychedelic may be hard to control in a patient like that. Now, if our compounds indeed do not produce hallucinations and have the same therapeutic effects, more people will likely be able to take them.
Theresa Brady (07:32):
Frank's company, Beckley Psytech, sees the hallucinogenic property as key to the drug's effectiveness.
Frank Wiegand (07:40):
At Beckley, we are working with a compound called 5-MeO-DMT, 5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine, which is a very powerful hallucinogenic. It's a 5-HT2A agonist. Most of the compounds that we are naming psychedelics have this similar mode of action that they're simulating this serotonergic receptor in your brain. Our compound elicits quite substantial psychedelic effects and are creating mystical experience and states of what we call ego dissolution, so very powerful consciousness altering drug, and we believe that this state of altered consciousness and the experience you have during such a trip can be an important part of the biological action. I think the field is quite not clear yet. What exerts most of the action that we see? Is it the consciousness altering effect that patients undergo, or is it the pure biologic effect on the neuronal network that confers most of the efficacy?
Theresa Brady (08:48):
Whether the companies are leaning in or away from the hallucinogenic properties of psychedelics, they all focused on something called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the human brain's ability to form and reform neural connections. Think about that scene from an old movie with a telephone operator unplugging and plugging in lines on a big switchboard. You can get a picture of how neuroplasticity and psychedelics work to help the brain heal. Kurt explains.
Kurt Rasmussen (09:24):
Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt and respond to stimuli. An important component of neuroplasticity is a morphological change in the neurons, a frank physical change. One of the exciting things about the psychedelics and the compound Delix is developing is that the compounds actually go in and there's a frank change in the morphology of the brain cells, which is exciting and it happens relatively rapidly. So, the neuroplasticity is an important component and the compounds we're trying to develop maintain the neuroplastic effects of the psychedelics, but lose the hallucinogenic effects of the psychedelics.
Theresa Brady (10:07):
Both Kurt and Frank agree that much more research is needed before we know for sure if and how these compounds work. Here's Frank.
Frank Wiegand (10:17):
I think the last word has not been spoken on this. There has been many research about this topic. There's animal data that, for example, ketamine, and it's also now for psilocybin and also for our drug, 5-MeO-DMT, pretty clear that the neuronal network of animals is changed quite substantially even after one single dose. So, I would say the last word about what really confers efficacy is not spoken. There's some data that suggests that psychedelics are especially helpful if they are dosed in a way that mystical experience or an ego dissolution event has been triggered. We are measuring this quite carefully in our trials and we are using this also as a potential biomarker for efficacy later on. And then, there's contrasting data that would say that there's no direct correlation or association between the psychedelic effect itself and the pharmacological activity of a drug later on.
Theresa Brady (11:24):
Kurt's approach removing hallucinogenic effects is also being tested.
Kurt Rasmussen (11:29):
There's a lot of controversy about whether or not the hallucinations are needed. In our animals, we've tested and we've got compounds that seem to be just as effective for showing efficacy but do not seem to be causing what we see as evidence of hallucinations in the animals. Now, ultimately, that'll have to be tested in the clinic, of course, and many people say that the hallucinogenic effect is critical for part of the efficacy, but we think not necessarily. The other thing to point out is that it's not an either or. Both types of medications can work. Some patients may benefit from hallucinations. Others may not. Both types of medications will hopefully be useful for patients in easing suffering and helping people recover from these horrible diseases.
Theresa Brady (12:15):
When we come back from a break, we'll talk more about how these drugs will be administered and what it will take to bring them to market.
(12:42):
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(13:18):
New treatments using psychedelics are being developed to go hand-in-hand with talk therapy to achieve the best outcomes for patients. For treatments that have hallucinogenic effects, psychotherapists are there with the patient, guiding them through a session or trip to ensure patients are monitored and safe.
Frank Wiegand (13:37):
Our first indication will be treatment resistant depression. We want to make sure that patients are safe during this experience. The consciousness altering effect of our drug is currently lasting about an hour also and during this, our patients are in altered stage of consciousness. We have highly trained psychotherapists that are attending these sessions. We are also videotaping the whole session and audio recording the whole session for purposes to look at adherence to our protocol and for safeguarding everyone.
Theresa Brady (14:12):
The potential for psychedelics to revolutionize mental healthcare is driving a wave of interest and investment. We hear from one investor who is focused on the market potential for psychedelics as well as the possibility to improve how we care for people with mental illness.
Clara Burtenshaw (14:29):
My name is Clara Burtenshaw and I'm a founder and partner at Neocam Ventures. Neocam Ventures is a 20 million pound fund focused on psychedelic healthcare. We believe in the power of psychedelics to transform standards of patient care, and we began investing in 2020 and have deployed over 15 million into the space so far across 20 portfolio companies.
Theresa Brady (14:52):
From Clara's perspective, investing in this space will help address an unmet patient need, but it also makes economic sense.
Clara Burtenshaw (15:01):
I mean, with so many people suffering from depression and PTSD and other mental health problems, the market's really huge. If you just look at the WHO figures, you've got 2 billion people worldwide experiencing mental illness and of that, you've got 269 million with PTSD, about 260 million with depression, and of that number, 77 million experience treatment resistant forms of depression. And so, if you look at the existing treatments available, many work very well for some people, but for others, they're ineffective or they produce intolerable side effects. When you look at some of the market estimates for psychedelics, some say that psychedelic derived treatments could treat indications estimated to reach over $700 billion in total market size by 2028.
Theresa Brady (15:50):
As a result of longstanding government policies meant to eliminate or at least discourage recreational use of these drugs, there remains a stigma around the idea of taking drugs that are not legally available. However, our guests say it's time to look at psychedelics in new ways.
Clara Burtenshaw (16:11):
I think that the attitudes towards psychedelics have really changed a lot over the last five to 10 years, aided by a lot of newspaper articles, books, literature, clinical trials, and TV and radio focus, which is great. I think the media drive to educate society about these new types of treatments and potentially and particularly patient stories have had this transformational effect in society's attitudes towards psychedelics. So, they're looking at this as more of a drug development play, a way of developing superior models of treatment, superior types of drug that can help people. I think when you frame the sector in that way and you talk about the size of the unmet need, how many people can benefit, and the results that we're getting from it, then the penny drops. People get it.
(17:07):
Actually, the problem is so prevalent and it affects so many people. Everyone knows someone who has suffered or they've suffered themselves. And so, I think the perception now is very much, "Well, why don't we try something else because the current treatments aren't working?" In my experience of speaking to investors, people suffering from mental health conditions, and people around me who I think are just looking for different types of treatment, there's a real recognition that status quo isn't as good as it could be. So, why not invest in something radical that could shake up the way that we treat mental health conditions today?
Theresa Brady (17:46):
These psychedelic treatments are not available in the US yet, but the FDA has approved clinical trials. Here's Kurt again.
Kurt Rasmussen (17:54):
There's lots of clinical trials going on now, as many as over a hundred clinical trials ongoing now with psychedelics. The data indicates that there are very strong effects of varying durations. Sometimes, the effects with different patients can get different lengths of benefits. So, for example, even something like ketamine, which is not a classic psychedelic, but in a way a hallucinogen, some patients can get an effect that can last for weeks, even months, whereas other patients get an effect that lasts a few days. The FDA has authorized these clinical trials to begin, but the DEA still considers them Schedule One compound and until the clinical trials and the compounds are approved, that's going to remain the case.
Clara Burtenshaw (18:39):
The US is ahead of the pack in terms of regulatory momentum and clinical trials which are taking place there in a number of very prestigious universities that are looking at this, like Johns Hopkins, NYU, Harvard, for example. So, the US really I think in terms of the rollout of these treatments legally is ahead of the pack.
Theresa Brady (19:00):
For Clara, it is time to move away from an antiquated view of psychedelics.
Clara Burtenshaw (19:12):
The primary misconception or misunderstanding that I'd like to correct is that psychedelics are no longer part of some hippy, counterculture movement. They're products that were revolutionary yesterday, they can be integrated to fight the invisible illness of depression today, and tomorrow, they will have massive impact and really look at this as a science and data-driven industry that's making huge strides through clinical trials.
Theresa Brady (19:42):
I want to thank Clara, Frank, and Kurt for opening our eyes to the exciting potential of psychedelics, and thanks to all of you for tuning in. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and or review this podcast, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn at I Am Biotech. Subscribe to GoodDay Bio at bio.org/goodday. This episode was developed by executive producer Theresa Brady and producers, Lynne Finnerty and Rob Gutnikoff. It was engineered and mixed by Jay Goodman with theme music created by Luke Smith and Sam Brady.