New results from a clinical trial using MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder showed the promise of a stigmatized drug to treat mental illness.
Drugs such as psilocybin and MDMA are rising in profile as mental illness treatment options after results from a phase 3 trial of MDMA combined with talk therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder showed impressive results, according to researchers.
“This is a pivotal event,” said Elemer Piros, a biotech analyst at Roth Capital Partners who covers the emerging alternative mental health treatment space. “It may not seem humongous, but it is one of the best and most rigorously executed trials in the space.”
The results of the MDMA study, whose senior author is Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, are expected to be published in the journal Nature Medicine on Monday and FDA approval could come by 2023, according to The New York Times.
A recent Imperial College London study of psilocybin use in depression reported in The New England Journal of Medicine also produced positive results.
In 2019, 51.5 million adults were living with a mental illness in the U.S., and the number of people suffering and drug costs, are projected to grow in the years ahead, with Covid-19 compounding mental health issues globally.
