A Note from the Editor

It’s been another busy week in the psychedelics field!

I’m currently in Japan, where psychedelic research is beginning to find its footing. Earlier this week, I met with Dr. Hiroyuki Uchida, a psychiatrist who is leading Asia’s first modern clinical trial of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). I interviewed Dr. Uchida earlier this year (we published it in both English and Japanese), so it was a real pleasure to meet him in person at Keio University Hospital, a sprawling complex in the country’s capital.

I was struck by just how much work it takes to get a psychedelic trial started in a country like Japan. In many Western countries, psychedelic studies are quickly becoming part of the furniture, with entities like Institutional Review Boards increasingly familiar and comfortable with them. But Dr. Uchida and co. were, in many regards, starting from scratch when they set out to launch a study a few years ago. Aside from securing buy-in from the necessary stakeholders, Uchida’s group also had to translate scales like the mystical experience questionnaire (MEQ) and get the study drug into Japan, a country with notoriously strict drug laws. But he persevered, and today the trial has nearly finished dosing the twelve patients it aimed to enrol. I will share some more brief thoughts on Japan’s psychedelic research scene in our next Bulletin.

Outside of Japan, plenty has happened this week, including:

• AbbVie’s purchase of Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals’ lead psychedelic candidate, bretisilocin, has been completed (the candidate also appears to be the subject of a patent dispute: more to come next week, for our Pα+ subscribers)
• The FDA did not award one of its new Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers to a psychedelic drug developer, nor did it award one to any mental health program
• But, FDA did award Breakthrough Therapy status to Beckley Psytech and atai Life Sciences’ intranasal 5-MeO-DMT candidate (BPL-003) for TRD
• California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a psychedelics Bill into law, with AB 1103 seeking to catalyse psychedelic research in the Golden State by reducing a key bureaucratic hurdle

We will cover all this, and more, in Bulletin 211 next week, which is exclusively for our Pα+ subscribers.

Here on Psychedelic Alpha, we published a discussion I had with trauma and memory researcher Samuli Kangaslampi, as well as the Q3 update to our Psychedelic Financing Tracker, plus a summary of the latest funding developments for our Pα+ subscribers.

Below, you will find your Psychedelic News Feed, a one-stop digest for the latest coverage of psychedelics business, policy, research and beyond.

Josh Hardman
Founder & Editor