Tryp Therapeutics CEO Greg McKee: The Possibilities Of Psilocybin Is Off The Charts

Amidst several clinical initiatives being undertaken at Tryp Therapeutics, the company decided it was time to make a decisive leadership change up top. Last Thursday, veteran pharmaceutical executive Greg McKee became its Chief Executive Officer, replacing Jim Kuo who will continue to serve as a director on the company’s Board.

Greg McKee has considerable drug development experience through his work experience at Genzyme, where he was responsible for commercializing leading compounds for rare diseases throughout Asia. He also has profound experience raising capital and building start-up companies, having serving as President and Chief Executive Officer at CONNECT, a southern California based business accelerator which has helped over 4,000 companies raise over $1.2 billion. Both skill sets are in high demand in the regulatory-challenging and capital intensive junior biotech space.

While most psychedelic companies with psilocybin portfolios are targeting depressive disorder indications, Tryp Therapeutics is taking a different path. The company is focusing on pain conditions with its lead psilocybin-for-neuropsychiatric (PFN) drug candidate TRP-8802—specifically to treat fibromyalgia, a a chronic pain syndrome estimated to affect more than 5 million people in the United States. In the interview, Greg McKee elucidates why Tryp has forged this unique approach:

We’re looking at a lot of other non-standard indications—we think it’s enormous right. I mean of course, we see this as a significant problem here in the United States. We’re going after more of a niche, you know, indication in the eating disorder space initially, be we expect that can expand to a much much, you know, larger and broader market. We think that the potential in multi-billion for sure—we’re still in the process of getting the data behind all that. But we think that it’s going to be enormous.

The company is also preparing to initiate a Phase 2a clinical study for eating disorders in partnership with the Dr. Jennifer Miller at the University of Florida.

Click on the embedded link for more of our exclusive interview with Tryp Therapeutics CEO Greg McKee, in his own words.