Europe’s first commercial facility for psychedelic drug trials is to open in London, with the goal of making the UK a global leader in psychedelics research and innovation.aims to begin trials in its central London facility in August, initially focusing on the use of psilocybin to help people deal with the anxiety associated with a diagnosis of terminal illness, and to support them through their end-of-life care.
Tom McDonald, the CEO at Clerkenwell Health, said: “Psychedelic assisted therapy could be groundbreaking for mental health treatment, and the UK is well placed to be at the vanguard of that as a global leader in clinical trials post-Brexit. Drug developers are increasingly exploring psychedelic compounds as potential treatments for mental health conditions such as mood disorders, PTSD and addictions, but their status as controlled substances can make it bureaucratically challenging and expensive to progress them through clinical trials.
, said: “A set of very specific conditions need to be met to do psychedelic-assisted therapy; it’s quite a specialised area of expertise. The eight or so companies in clinical trials with psychedelic-based medicines heavily rely on contract research organisations to do this kind of research – particularly as they begin to enter [late-stage] clinical trials.