Leading UK psychedelics company Compass Pathways is entering into a pioneering collaboration with King’s College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to accelerate psychedelic research and develop new models of care for mental health in the UK.
The Centre for Mental Health Research and Innovation will accelerate research of emerging psychedelic therapies. It will initially focus on Compass Pathways’ psilocybin therapy, and the centre will provide access to the therapy to an estimated 650 to 700 patients over a five-year term.
To do this, Compass is partnering with the largest mental health trust in the NHS – the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) – as well as the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London. The partnership will be providing patient access to cutting edge research studies in multiple areas of high unmet need in mental health.
In July 2021, the UK Government set out the country’s Life Sciences Vision – aiming to take a new approach to mental health care. The vision aims to address the significant unmet need for innovative new mental health treatments and to gain a better understanding of mental health to develop new therapies.
Despite being an area of focus for policymakers for years, the prevalence of mental ill health is increasing in the UK. On top of this, the problem has been compounded by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to statistics in the House of Commons Library, from July 2019 to March 2020, 10 per cent of the population were effected by mental ill health, increasing to 19 per cent by June 2020 and 21 per cent by January to March 2021.
Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Compass Pathways, George Goldsmith, commented: “This partnership will develop new therapies for patients in areas of significant unmet need, such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD and anorexia nervosa, and help those who currently have few effective treatment options.
“It’s an exciting partnership because it brings together teams representing the NHS, research, and industry for the first time in creating a mental health research and innovation centre. The fact that this is also a first for psychedelic research is notable; this partnership will provide patient access to cutting edge research and help the UK to develop better mental health care models.”
He also stated: “In 2021, the UK Government included mental health care as a core pillar of its Life Sciences Vision – a signal of how critical an issue this is becoming.
“We are grateful to be able to play a part in this, and to be working with SLaM and the IoPPN, UK leaders in patient care and research in mental health. The centre will accelerate the integration of innovative psychedelic therapies into the NHS following regulatory approval and reimbursement.
“It is a key part of our strategy to work with health systems to develop innovative evidence-based therapies, and ensure they reach those who might benefit from them as quickly as possible.”
Professor Allan Young, head of Academic Psychiatry at King’s IoPPN, commented: “This new centre is all about putting patients first.
“The collaboration with Compass Pathways will focus on developing new and effective therapies, as well as considering the patient experience in the real world. We hope it will pave the way for how research and innovations partnerships are developed in the future.”
The centre will be purpose-built for late-stage clinical trials and will be managed by leading clinical investigators with extensive experience in conducting psychedelic clinical trials.
The new partnership will support therapist training and certification, evaluate real-world evidence, and prototype digital technologies to enable personalised, predictive and preventative care models.
Alongside its focus on Compass Pathway’s COMP360 psilocybin therapy and supportive technologies, the research will also cover other novel therapeutic approaches being researched and developed by the company in areas of high unmet need. These include treatment-resistant depression (TRD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anorexia nervosa.
Compass says its ambition is for the centre to be a beacon of innovative mental health care models, and help inspire and accelerate the development of such public-private partnerships among industry sponsors, academic investigators and the NHS.
The centre will initially be located at Maudsley Hospital, London, while state-of-the-art facilities are built within a 200 acre woodland at Bethlem Royal Hospital, London.
Chief Executive of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, David Bradley, stated: “We are seeing a rapid growth in the number of people with mental health care needs, in South London and across the UK.
“We are proud to continue our legacy of innovation and research by partnering with Compass Pathways to directly translate research into healthcare treatment and significantly improve care in our communities.”
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