Pα+: Knowledge Gaps in Psychedelic Medicalisation, According to ECNP and Regulators

In a pre-proof of a forthcoming journal article, members of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) including European Medicines Agency’s Chief Medical Officer, Steffen Thirstrup, discuss knowledge gaps “that may be imperative for a successful implementation of psychedelic drugs as medicines”.

E-Wen McCulloch, D., Liechti, M. E., Kuypers, K. PC., Nutt, D., Lundberg, J., Stenbæk, D. S., Goodwin, G. M., Gründer, G., Butlen-Ducuing, F., Haberkamp, M., Thirstrup, S., & Knudsen, G. M. (2024). Knowledge gaps in psychedelic medicalisation: Clinical studies and regulatory aspects. Neuroscience Applied, 103938. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nsa.2024.103938

These knowledge gaps were identified at ECNP’s two-day New Frontiers meeting in Nice, France, in March 2023. I was lucky enough to attend this meeting and—without being encumbered by peer review or the rigour expected of academic publishing—was able to publish a Dispatch at the time.

As I mentioned last spring, “We don’t know” was the catchphrase of the meeting. And so, I’m pleased to see ECNP formulate these unanswered questions into a neat summary of knowledge gaps in this present publication.

Here, I summarise the paper and weave in some of our own analysis...