The drug development firm Filament Health Corp. (OTCQB: FLHLF) (NEO: FH) (FSE: 7QS) will supply psilocybin for a federally-funded study led by one of Canada’s largest mental health institutions.
This Thursday, the company announced the partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) where Filament will supply the doses of “natural” psilocybin that will be used in a study looking at the psychedelic and its effects on treatment-resistant depression (TRD).
The trial is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and was announced in July this year. The study is the first to receive a federal grant to study psilocybin.
The study will be led by Dr Ishrat Husain, Head of the CAMH Clinical Trials Unit and will look at whether experiencing psilocybin’s psychedelic effects is required for its antidepressant effects. Researchers will recruit 60 adults suffering from TRD and place them under three different groups.
One group will receive a full dose of psilocybin and a blocker for the serotonin receptor which has been found to cause psychoactive effects when stimulated in other research. A different group will receive a full dose of psilocybin and a placebo and the last group will receive a placebo and a serotonin blocker.
All participants will also receive 12 hours of psychotherapy as per current psychedelic-assisted therapy protocols. The clinical trial application is under review by Health Canada with approval expected by January 2023.
Researchers at CAMH have done other research involving ketamine and psilocybin and it was the only Canadian site for the largest clinical trial of psilocybin which was sponsored by COMPASS Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS).
The teaching hospital and research centre is associated with the University of Toronto and is a Pan-American Health Organization and WHO Collaborating Centre.
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“Treatment-resistant depression affects millions of people and is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and current treatments are limited by either poor efficacy or tolerability,” CAMH trial’s lead researcher Ishrat Husain said.
“Existing clinical data suggests that psilocybin shows promise for treating treatment-resistant depression; our intention is to expand on this research by examining whether psychedelic effects are necessary to achieve an antidepressant response,” Husain added.
“The trial design relies upon a supply of safe, high-quality psilocybin so Filament Health’s support is crucial to our success.”
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