London start-up starts testing psychedelics to treat mental conditions

Clerkenwell Health will trial psilocybin on terminally ill cancer patients suffering from adjustment disorders
Psilocybin can be found in magic mushrooms
Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
Zi Wang10 October 2022

A substance found in magic mushrooms could help treat severe cases of mental conditions, including depression, amid a growing interest in using psychedelic drugs as treatment aids in psychotherapy.

Clerkenwell Health, a London-based organisation that runs clinical tests for pharmaceutical companies, is due to start testing psilocybin, a substance commonly found in magic mushrooms, to see if it can help treat adjustment disorders in terminally ill cancer patients in conjunction with psychotherapy.

Adjustment disorders are stress-related conditions that surface in response to a stressful or unexpected event – in this case, a terminal-cancer diagnosis.

The firm, one of UK and Europe’s few psychedelic-specialist clinical-research organisations, was tapped by Canadian biotech company Psyence to run the trials on around 60 cancer patients, following approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Terminally ill people are more than twice as likely to commit suicide than the general population, according to data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics.

Tom McDonald, CEO of Clerkenwell Health, said in a statement: “The UK is extremely well-placed to become the leader in psychedelics research and trials thanks to its globally competitive framework for clinical trials, which is why we chose to launch our operations in London.”

Experts have linked psilocybin’s effects to its ability to increase receptiveness and connectedness in the taker’s brain. Its presence in magic mushrooms reportedly helps consumers to feel “mind-expanding” experiences.

David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, told i News that psilocybin “dampens down a part of the brain that is one of the driver hubs for depression,” and it does so within minutes, rather than the weeks or months needed with antidepressants and psychotherapy.

But psilocybin is just one among various psychedelic drugs that Clerkenwell Health has been contracted to test. The company said it has signed up multiple drug developers barely a year since its founding, showing the growing interest in using drugs like MDMA and ketamine to treat mental-health issues.

Clerkenwell Health is also not the only British firm exploring the potential of psychedelics, with Bristol-based Awakn researching the effects of ketamine and MDMA (ecstasy and molly) in treating alcohol and sex addictions, among others.

However, these drugs’s reputation as “party” drugs means that potential takers will have to contend with sceptical governments’ lengthy approval processes, and in the UK, psilocybin is still classified as a Class A, schedule one illegal substance. Their potency and unpredictability also make them challenging to manage as psychiatric drugs, and not without their risks.

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