Two parents’ fight to set up the largest ever magic mushroom trial for depression is nearly over
“It was interesting science but there was no pathway to patients,” Malievskaia said …”We got to the point when the signals were too strong to ignore. The need was too great. So we decided to put our skills together to accelerate patient access to psilocybin.”
Many small studies have linked psilocybin to improvements in mental health, for example reducing anxiety and depression among cancer patients. But larger-scale clinical trials have been lacking. Without these, the journey towards medical use of psilocybin to treat depression has more or less ground to a halt. Compass Pathways isn’t arguing for legalisation of psilocybin or magic mushrooms for recreational purposes, Malievskaia emphasised. “We are substance-agnostic. It just happened to be that psilocybin is a psychedelic.” The company is now working towards running the largest trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression to date, aiming to recruit a total of 400 patients. The next largest trial done so far was on about 50 people.
Original Article (IBTimes):
Two parents’ fight to set up the largest ever magic mushroom trial for depression is nearly over
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