MYND Life CEO Dr. Oberg on Depression Biomarker: We’ll See Revenue in ‘22
The last six weeks have been pretty exciting, if you’ve been following updates from MYND Life Sciences Inc (CSE:MYND). In late May, Dr. Lyle Oberg shared with us that MYND discovered what he called ‘the switch’ for depression. Dr. Oberg is back with us to share some updates on this depression biomarker, how Australia is playing a part in helping research fighting the disease, and some early information on clinical trials using psychedelics to treat Alzheimer’s.
Here’s some highlights from the interview.
Oberg believes MYND will “prove the pathway” for depression within 24 months
“Well I think in 12-24 months we will have proven that the pathway that we’re looking at is the pathway when it comes to regulating inflammation in the body and depression in particular – neural inflammation,” Dr. Oberg says.
“I think we’ll also be well into stage 2 trials and will be set out to proving exactly how it works, what dosage [of psychedelics] we’re looking at and what’s the best type of psychedelic to be used when it comes to helping and potentially curing major depressive disorder.”
Depression biomarker will be a game changer in diagnosing the disease
Dr. Oberg explains how in the way depression is currently diagnosed, you have to have at least 5 of 8 symptoms, they have to persist longer for two weeks, and it has to be debilitating. This makes depression unlike other diseases which have tests that clearly indicate whether or not you have it. Oberg says that MYND made the step to say depression is caused by neuroinflammation, and with that comes the ability to diagnose it.
MYND has found a biomarker that has the potential to diagnose depression, Oberg says. More importantly, the biomarker has the potential to monitor relapses and getting better. Not only will it be “powerful and huge” to be able to establish a baseline for patients with depression using the biomarker, it will help research and development, because in many studies, they need an objective factor to determine if the studies are actually going to work.
Revenue situation by Q1 of 2022 with the biomarker for depression
On this, Oberg appears to have no doubt. “We’ll potentially be in a revenue situation with this biomarker by the first quarter of ‘22. It is something that is there, and something that is real, and something that is easy to do. It’s simply a blood spot on a film. It’s not where you have to draw a considerable amount of blood in order to test it. So, it’s a very good test.”
Clinical trials for 2022 will target depression, COVID, and Alzheimer’s
Dr. Oberg says that the reason COVID-19 will be studied is that it causes an inflammatory state and there’s a high incidence of depression. He adds that they will also be looking at brain fog, one of the CNS side effects that as many as 20-30% of COVID patients are left with afterwards.
The other interesting piece of news that Dr. Oberg had to share was related to their newest patent, which will allow them to enter studies on Alzheimer’s patients using psychedelics. Oberg says that MYND will be able to do preclinicals very quickly, as they have everything they need.
“Pretty excited about the opportunity to regress – and yes, I used the word regress – regress Alzheimers disease,” says Dr. Oberg. Already, they’re seeing amyloid plaques dissolve in mice trials. He does caution that the mouse trials are “not 100%, but they certainly can be indicative of what can happen in humans.”
