Market Overview
Psychedelic compounds are undergoing a remarkable revival in healthcare, holding promise for treating mental health conditions like depression and PTSD. With over 80 companies engaged in development, psychedelics are poised to reshape the mental health landscape. Despite lingering stigma, their potential for transformative therapy is gaining acceptance and may lead to significant advancements in treatment approaches.
The ability to impart neuroplasticity - to reorganize connections in the brain’s synapses - has led some to suggest psychedelics could be treatments for eating disorders, cluster headaches, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Some 80+ companies are now devoted to developing or administering psychedelic compounds. Some firms are betting on first-generation psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, which is the psychoactive component of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Many scientists say that the psychedelic trip brings about a change in perspective that is critical for treating mental illness. Patients could see lasting effects after just one or two psychedelic treatments, which are given under controlled conditions sometimes in combination with intensive psychotherapy.
While there are already a number of approved approaches to treating depression, many only last a short time, cause side effects, and can’t help all patients. Psychedelic drugs are increasingly seen as a potential long-lasting alternative for patients that are left behind by existing approaches.
The current surge in the popularity of psychedelics began with studies from the mid-2010s. Separate research groups at the University of California, Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Imperial College London, and the University of Zurich found fast and lasting effects using psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, to treat small groups of people with treatment-resistant depression and existential distress, term doctors use to describe the psychological turmoil people may feel when they face death.
Many mental health professional acknowledge that the current medicinal options for many mental illnesses are only moderately successful. Creating a good drug is always a struggle in medicinal chemistry, but it’s even tougher for central nervous system drugs, which must cross the blood-brain barrier.
Even if companies succeed in reformulating psychedelics into effective drugs, these compounds will still face the cultural stigma often associated with them. It’s so strongly ingrained in so many people that it’s illegal, unsafe. To transform that mindset, we definitely need a paradigm shift and cannabis may have paved the way to a more receptive change.