UK scientists are to research the potential of psilocybin to boost the effects of talking therapies for people with an end-of-life diagnosis.
The team of scientists from the Kent-based research organisation Transpharmation will be aligning human and lab experiments to research psilocybin to help reduce depression for those with a terminal illness. The clinical trials will be led by London-based psychedelic research organisation Clerkenwell Health.
The UK will now join countries such as the US and Australia to look at how psilocybin could form part of an end-of-life healthcare plan for people struggling emotionally with a terminal diagnosis.
Clerkenwell Health CSO Henry Fisher said: “This partnership offers up a rare opportunity to deliver some truly joined-up thinking in terms of pre-clinical and clinical research.
“Given the potential that psilocybin and related psychedelic compounds present as clinical tools across a range of indications, this is a hugely exciting development for advancing the clinical development process. This partnership will greatly assist companies in this space with accelerating their goal of market approval.”
Easing end-of-life anxiety
Research shows that between 25 per cent and 77 per cent of terminally ill patients have major depression and that 40 per cent of cancer patients develop significant distress on diagnosis, including serious worry, panic attacks, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
A double-blind trial of psilocybin use in cancer patients by researchers in the US demonstrated positive outcomes in mood, attitudes and behaviours in patients, which persist even months after a single dose administered in a controlled medical setting.
The Transpharmation and Clerkenwell study will further examine the use of psilocybin combined with talking therapies, which is posited to reduce end of life anxiety through fostering increased acceptance of their condition, and a sense of interconnectedness to the world around them. It is hoped that psilocybin will enhance the changes in perspective that are directed by talking therapy.
To remove the disparity between lab and clinical trials, the combined scientific team will work together on the design and implementation of the study, working from the same baseline so that observations in one sub-team can be quickly correlated or confirmed in the other.
Transpharmation’s Scientific Liaison Dr John Huxter said: “We have an opportunity here to align methodology across the clinical and preclinical work.
“There have been some high-profile clinical trial failures in recent years, using treatments that nevertheless showed promise pre-clinically. In many cases, this is not because one result was right and the other wrong, but because the studies were not run in comparable ways.
“Working in a joined-up fashion allows you to head off those problems in advance. For example, we can agree on desired tissue exposure, dosing regimen, the route of administration, and the kind of endpoints that we use. Then we have a much better chance of translating pre-clinical study success into positive outcomes for patients.”
