“A psychedelic compound found in the venom of the Colorado River toad is showing promise as a faster, simpler treatment for depression,” reports The Doomslayer. “In a trial of 193 patients, a single dose eased symptoms for at least eight weeks with no serious side effects. Most patients were ready to go home after just 90 minutes—a big improvement over other psychedelics that can require all-day supervision.”
The Financial Times adds:
A psychedelic nasal spray requiring a much shorter period of clinical supervision has shown promise against treatment-resistant depression, giving biotechs hope that this type of drug will become a viable option for healthcare systems to use for mental health conditions.
Atai Life Sciences and Beckley Psytech announced on Tuesday that patients in their trial of mebufotenin benzoate — based on a compound found in many plants and the venom of the Colorado River toad — demonstrated ‘clinically meaningful’ reductions in depressive symptoms as soon as the day after treatment.
The effect of a single treatment lasted for the trial of eight weeks without plateauing by the end and there were no serious side effects.
The trial of 193 patients in six countries found that the majority were ready for discharge 90 minutes after the dose, a marked improvement from previous trials of psychedelic treatments, where patients required supervision for a whole day.
About 300 million people have been diagnosed with depression. As many as 150 million people have depression that was previously untreatable, because it did not respond to two or more antidepressants. Maybe they will finally find some relief due to this compound found in the venom of the Colorado River Toad. “Atai Life Sciences and Beckley Psytech now hope to take the drug into a phase 3 trial that would be required for approval. Regulators have not yet approved any psychedelic treatments but many are in trials for conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia and other types of depression.”
