Non-Hallucinogenic Psilocybin & Mental Health: Diamond Therapeutics’ Historic Clinical Trial Begins
Toronto’s Diamond Therapeutics sat down with The Dales Report at this year’s Wonderland: Miami psychedelics conference, where the company made some noise with a landmark press release dropping just prior to the event’s commencement.
On November 8th Diamond Therapeutics, or simply Diamond, announced that their Phase 1 clinical trial group had been administered the first dose, in what was the first docking approved by Health Canada to study the safety and reactions to healthy patients being provided with low dose, non-hallucinogenic psilocybin.
The fight against mental health disorders has seen a number of companies invest in psychedelics as a potential cure, and Diamond hopes that their efforts will further advance the use of these taboo substances in the medical and pharmacological industries.
Diamond Therapeutics’ head of strategy and finance Sam Kerr joined us to discuss these recent developments and to offer a more comprehensive look into the future of the company and psychedelics space.
Those investors looking at psychedelic stock offerings will be particularly interested given Kerr’s role in the company’s finances, where he aids in investor relations.
The conversation opens with the investor in mind.
“So if you’re sitting in front of a group of investors, what do you say to them as far as who you are,” asks Shadd. “Why should they be interested in you and in the industry?”
“Our message is simple,” starts Kerr, “in that we are taking a very scientifically rigorous approach to clinical drug development, in terms of psychedelic molecules, and our aim is accessibility. We’re focused on a very low dose currently of psilocybin, we do start first patients in the clinic actually on Friday, which we announced this morning. But what differentiates us is the fact that we’re trying to adopt an approach which is accessible to as many people as possible.”
“It’s complicated clinical development, especially in terms of mental and behavioural health conditions is a challenging feat. And we’ve been working with some exceptional folks in our clinical and scientific advisors. And we’ve, we’ve worked with individuals who’ve done this successfully in the past. So our approach has been to go slowly and invest a lot of time upfront, as I mentioned, we just started a phase one trial.”
The two take some time to further discuss the trial and its implications before moving to a broader view of the industry as a whole, where Kerr addresses the stigmatism associated with psychedelics and the limitations of existing treatment options.
“I think that if you look at the current frontline treatments for a number of these mental health and behavioural health concerns, the truth is there’s significant deleterious side effects from a lot of them. The efficacy is very low. It has been demonstrated over, you know, several decades now. Yeah. So the reality is, is, you know, this, this issue is an epidemic of mental health crisis. And this is the thing that we’re all here together. Yeah, trying to unpack things are positive way. But I think we need to recognize that a better solution is needed, and one that can be accessible, that can be reimbursed, that can be affordable for as many people as possible.”
