The 'mind-blow­ing' R&D re­nais­sance in psy­che­del­ic meds finds a home at Johns Hop­kins

The “mind-blow­ing” field of psy­che­del­ic re­search is get­ting its first ma­jor US home, one that could help le­git­imize a field that has slow­ly crept out of the shad­ows over the last two decades.

Johns Hop­kins Med­i­cine an­nounced Wednes­day they are open­ing what they be­lieve to be the first cen­ter for psy­che­del­ic re­search in the coun­try and the largest in the world.

The Cen­ter for Psy­che­del­ic and Con­scious­ness Re­search at Johns Hop­kins Med­i­cine will in­clude a team of 11 fac­ul­ty sci­en­tists and post-docs in­ves­ti­gat­ing the po­ten­tial use of LSD and psilo­cy­bin (the chem­i­cal found in mag­ic mush­rooms) — among oth­er psy­che­delics — to im­pact hu­man cre­ativ­i­ty and well-be­ing and to treat a host of dis­or­ders, in­clud­ing opi­oid ad­dic­tion, Alzheimer’s dis­ease and PTSD.

Once stud­ied ex­ten­sive­ly by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, psy­che­delics vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared from re­search lab­o­ra­to­ries af­ter most were sched­uled as Class I drugs by the Nixon Ad­min­is­tra­tion in 1970. But since 2000, when Johns Hop­kins ob­tained ap­proval to ad­min­is­ter psy­che­delics to hu­man sub­jects who had nev­er tak­en one be­fore, sci­en­tists at a hand­ful of in­sti­tu­tions have steadi­ly brought the cat­e­go­ry of drugs in­to the sci­en­tif­ic fore­ground.

These re­searchers have de­scribed some of their re­sults as “mind-blow­ing” in their abil­i­ty to help pa­tients, as health writer Michael Pol­lan re­port­ed in the New York­er in 2015. Pol­lan has been one of the most promi­nent pro­mot­ers of psy­che­delics, writ­ing in pop­u­lar pub­li­ca­tions and his new book How to Change Your Mind about the po­ten­tial for this class of drugs to treat anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion with hereto­fore un­heard-of suc­cess.

In March, the FDA ap­proved a psy­che­del­ic drug for the first time: Es­ke­t­a­mine for treat­ing de­pres­sion. MD­MA (com­mon­ly called ec­sta­sy) re­ceived break­through ther­a­py sta­tus in 2017 and Phase III tri­als to use it as PTSD treat­ment have shown promise. Tri­als com­plet­ed at NYU and Hop­kins – which prompt­ed the “mind-blow­ing” de­scrip­tion – high­light­ed the po­ten­tial for the drugs to de­crease “ex­is­ten­tial dis­tress” in can­cer pa­tients.

Nev­er­the­less, sig­nif­i­cant le­gal hur­dles ex­ist to ob­tain­ing gov­ern­ment funds for psy­che­del­ic re­search and the cen­ter will be en­tire­ly pri­vate­ly fund­ed. The list of donors, though, re­flects the rep­u­ta­tion and cache the drugs have amassed among a younger gen­er­a­tion of in­flu­encers and Sil­i­con Val­ley types, who have dri­ven some of the de­vel­op­ment to date. They in­clude au­thor, tech in­vestor, and pod­cast host Tim Fer­riss, Word­Press co-founder Matt Mul­len­weg and TOMS founder Blake My­coskie.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

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Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee lobs more bi­par­ti­san pres­sure on­to PBMs

Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate.

While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously.

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Nicklas Westerholm, Egetis Therapeutics CEO

Ac­qui­si­tion talks on­go­ing for Swedish rare dis­ease biotech Egetis, shares up al­most 40%

Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.”

Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made.

Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments.

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Lu­pus drug de­vel­op­ment mar­ket heat­ing up, while FDA links with ad­vo­ca­cy group to fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate re­search

The long-underserved systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) market is suddenly buzzing with treatment possibilities. Less than two years after AstraZeneca’s approval for Saphnelo — the first new SLE drug in a decade and joining just one other approved in GSK’s Benlysta – the pipeline of potential drugs numbers in the dozens.

Although most are very early stage — Spherix Global Insights estimates five in Phase II/III — the pharma R&D enthusiasm is catching on among doctors, patients and advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the Lupus Research Alliance and the FDA formed a novel private-public partnership called Lupus Accelerating Breakthroughs Consortium (Lupus ABC) to help advance lupus clinical trial success.

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Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Mod­er­na so­lid­i­fies deal with Kenya to build mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

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J&J bows out of RSV vac­cine race, end­ing PhI­II study and ced­ing to Pfiz­er, GSK

Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday morning it is ending development of its adult RSV vaccine that was in the middle of a 27,200-patient trial, giving up a big slice of what’s expected to be the next multibillion-dollar pharma market.

The decision came down to the shifting RSV “competitive landscape,” a company spokesperson tells Endpoints News, adding the “breadth of options” was much different than when J&J first started its pivotal study. The spokesperson declined to comment on the Phase III data, saying only the shot is undergoing an “ongoing assessment.”

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Deborah Waterhouse, ViiV Healthcare CEO

MPP re­cruits three gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers to ex­pand use of Vi­iV's in­jectable PrEP drug

ViiV Healthcare has teamed up with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool and three generic manufacturers to expand access to medicine that can prevent HIV.

ViiV and the Medicines Patent Pool jointly announced Thursday that the MPP signed sub-licensing agreements with Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris to manufacture generics of a long-acting form of cabotegravir for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). As a result of the agreement, the manufacturers will be able to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of cabotegravir LA in 90 countries — subject to regulatory approvals.