Reflecting On Wonderland: Miami With Tryp Therapeutics’ Greg McKee
Fresh off of a trip to Miami, Florida, The Dales Report sat down with Tryp Therapeutics (CNSX: TRYP) (OTCMKTS: TRYPF) CEO and chairman Greg McKee to find out just how beneficial having facetime with other industry professionals was after 18 months of isolation.
“It was great, because there was such a diverse set of individuals there from the industry,” he said of #WonderlandMiami, a business medical conference with a psychedelic focus. Researchers, analysts, other companies, and alternative service providers from around the world made appearances at the event, but McKee said for Tryp, the main draw was the opportunity to get in front of analysts, investors, and bankers.
While that was Tryp’s key purpose for attending, McKee said that he saw Tuesday’s research announcement from Compass Pathways’ latest phase 2b trial as the “big kaboom” of the event.
On The Compass Results
A total of 233 patients with treatment-resistant depression participated in the three-arm study, the largest randomized, controlled, double-blind psilocybin therapy study ever completed. Patients received psychological support from therapists and were given active doses of COMP360, Compass’ psilocybin formulation, at 10 and 25 milligrams. A 1-milligram dose was used as a control.
The drug was deemed well-tolerated, although 179 of 233 patients experienced at least one treatment-emergent adverse event such as headache, nausea, fatigue, or insomnia. In addition, 12 patients reported serious adverse events after treatment, including suicidal behavior, self-injury, and suicidal ideation.
The 25-milligram dose proved to be more efficacious, as at least twice the number of patients in the 25-milligram group showed responses to treatment at three and 12 weeks following the treatment.
“I think it’s a great step forward for the industry,” said McKee. “You’ve got to look at this on its face value of what they were actually able to do. Nobody’s done a study this large to date. Second of all, it worked, and it worked twice as well on the 25-milligram group as it did on the 10-milligram group.” Mckee also pointed out that the dropout rate in the study was higher among those who received the smaller dose.
What These Studies Mean For The Industry
Now that well-controlled studies are being conducted, larger drug development funds are beginning to take notice, McKee said. The next step is gaining the attention of Big Pharma. He suggested data from this recent study “is exactly the kind of data” players in Big Pharma are looking for.
Still, McKee said he was surprised to see such a big sell-off of Compass stock following the company’s announcement.
“I was really shocked at the market’s response… selling off on the news is not typical,” he said. “I would think that ow over the next few weeks, they’ll begin to rebuild that position of where the company was going.”
Tryp Therapeutics: Mission Accomplished
As for Tryp Therapeutics, the team’s mission in Miami was “definitely accomplished,” meeting with different teams and groups and getting positive feedback from investors and industry colleagues alike.
“We get a lot of kudos for looking at other therapeutic indications outside of mood disorders,” he said. “Companies and analysts and investors and bankers are beginning to focus on the other things that need to be developed that would be innovative, and I think that novel formulations, with novel routes of administration… is something where there’s a much more controlled experience, I think is going to becoming much more top of mind.”
“We’re very well poised to be part of that conversation, as one of the companies pressing on novel formulations that can really help patients with a better delivery methodology.”
Watch the full interview in the video above.
