Cannabis Paved the Way for Psychedelics – Derrick Welsh of Revive Therapeutics
In this interview, The Dales Report sat down with Derrick Welsh, the COO of Psilocin Pharma Corp, a Division of Revive Theraputics (CSE: RVV OTC: RVVTF), to talk about what’s new for the company and psychedelics generally, both now and for 2021. This comes on the heels of news just last week regarding research results on using psilocybin for the treatment of traumatic brain injury and the companies clinical trials for Bucillamine.
We appreciated having Derrick Welsh back with us, as it’s been a few months since we’ve had an update on how things are going with the company. Here’s some highlights from the interview:
For Traumatic Brain Injury, Favorable Results Are In
To quickly recap on last week’s news, Revive Theraputics had positive results to announce regarding the efficacy of psilocybin on mice. Welsh says that favorable results were found at a certain dose range, and this is the groundwork that will help aid further drug development and the clinical trial path.
Investors should be taking away that this is positive foundational work being done that might help Revive obtain orphan drug status or a clinical drug path, according to Welsh. Orphan drug status is important because it allows for certain opportunities for research, grants, and protections down the line. Also, with the UFC talking about investigating psylocibin as a treatment for head injuries and concussions, this could be just the beginning of opportunities.
E-coli: the ‘Chassis’ That Might Make Many Drugs
Revive’s biosynthesis program uses e-coli as their platform, a bacterium which Welsh says is capable of producing both prescription-grade and over-the-counter drugs and products, as well as even some common chemotherapy drugs. Just as a similar chassis can be used to manufacture different models of vehicles, Welsh hopes that e-coli will not only be used by Revive to produce psilocybin compounds in-house for the company, but that they’ll eventually be able to modify it to produce other psychedelics such as LSD, DMT, and MDMA.
Welsh believes that Revive is unique in choosing e-coli as a synthesis platform – other companies are using different ones to produce psilocybin and MDMA.
Welsh says Psychedelics Benefitted Greatly from Cannabis ‘Paving the Way’
While there is some chatter about how MDMA could potentially be legalized within the next 12 months, Welsh doesn’t believe that it will be available the way cannabis is; the stigma against psychedelics is still strong. In the early days of legalization, it will likely still be primarily a physician-prescribed drug, he says.
Still, the psychedelics industry is moving much more quickly than it did for cannabis. Welsh says “The cannabis industry really did pave the way forward for all of us.” As an example, he says it’s because of cannabis that Welsh says psychedelics companies know what to do to get products to market, know the regulations that have to be in place to get the products put forward, and know the prescription model better than previously.
