Filament Health Corporation, a clinical-stage natural psychedelic drug development company, announced that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Reset Pharmaceuticals Inc. that will allow Filament to license its proprietary botanical psilocybin drug candidate, PEX010, and associated intellectual property. Reset Pharma will now begin a phase 2 clinical trial of PEX010 for the treatment of demoralization syndrome, which is quite common in palliative care settings. Here’s more: https://www.filament.health/news/filament-health-enters-licensing-agreement-with-reset-pharma

Mindset Pharma, a drug discovery company developing novel psychedelic and non-psychedelic medications to treat neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders with unmet medical needs, announced that Otsuka Pharmaceutical will be acquiring the company for approximately $60 million.  

This deal is not trivial as Otsuka is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. In 2022, it did $4.4 billion in revenue and currently boasts a market cap of $20.6 billion. Just more confirmation that big pharma is ponying up to get a piece of the psychedelics market.  

And these psychedelics companies don’t have to get all the way through Phase III clinical trials to get acquired. Worth noting: this deal comes just months after Mindset released positive preclinical data on its non-hallucinogenic psychedelics. Check it out: https://www.greenmarketreport.com/mindset-pharma-files-patents-for-nonhallucinogenic-psychedelic-drugs-to-treat-brain-disorders/

While Otsuka was busy sinking its teeth into Mindset (and paying a small premium to do so) Cybin Inc. announced that it will be acquiring Small Pharma, Inc., a U.K.-based biotech company focused on short-duration psychedelic therapies for mental health conditions.

If you’re unfamiliar, Small Pharma demonstrated the first placebo-controlled efficacy results for DMT in treating Major Depressive Disorder. The company also boasts two clinical-stage DMT-based programs, a pipeline of preclinical assets, and a pretty impressive IP portfolio. The latter makes this deal pretty unique as the combined entity of Cybin and Small Pharma will now hold one of the most impressive IP portfolios in the psychedelic drug development sector, with a combined 158 pending patent applications, including two allowed applications, and 28 granted patents protecting the combined companies’ clinical and preclinical molecules. Here’s more: https://ir.cybin.com/investors/news/news-details/2023/Cybin-to-Acquire-Small-Pharma-Inc/default.aspx

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Did you know that a Bay Area nonprofit called the S.I.R.E.N. Project offers psychedelic therapy for first responders?

The group is run by two firefighters with more than 35 years in emergency services, including fire, EMS, and search & rescue, and was featured this week in an article in Marin Independent Journal.

This year, the S.I.R.E.N. Project will have sent 15 firefighters, a spouse of a firefighter and a police officer on therapeutic psychedelic journeys.

You can check out the S.I.R.E.N. Project’s website here: https://thesirenproject.org/

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