Psychedelics are having a moment

Ekaterina Malievskaia, co-founder of mental healthcare company Compass Pathways and Dame Til Wykes, head of school for Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, King’s College London, talk about the revolutionary potential for psychedelics as a treatment for depression.

Magic mushrooms are generally associated with the rave scene, or festival goers having a trippy experience. But what if these mushrooms are the future of mental health? Millions and millions have already been poured into research globally to measure the effects of the active ingredient, psilocybin.

In this episode of The Next Stage Ekaterina Malievskaia, co-founder of mental healthcare company Compass Pathways, talked about the exciting new results from her company’s psilocybin trial.

20 percent of people experiencing what is known as ‘treatment resistant depression’ responded positively to psilocybin despite having not responded for years or even decades to currently approved depression treatments, said Katerina.

Unlike previous studies on psychedelics that were “not really up to the regulatory standards” due to lacking randomised control design or employing crossover design (testing more than one treatment at once), this study, consisting of 233 individuals, is one of the most rigorous to date, explained the co-founder.

“Because of the size of the study and the design, the treatment effect was probably lower that the majority of the psychedelic community expected. But while some people might be disappointed, it’s really great news for patients, because as I said, these people didn’t respond to any existing treatments […] these are extraordinary results for this population.”

Speaking about the hype surrounding psychedelics, Dame Til Wykes said: “Everybody thinks of them as a sort of miracle drug. When people think that then their expectations are very high, so when you say 20 percent [success rate], it sounds like not very much. Well, actually, it’s huge within the group that were in this study”.

“I really do think we need to have a measured response to any of the drugs that might affect people with mental health problems, because if you hype them up, then the investors will be unhappy when they receive the result, the patients will certainly be unhappy, and the prescribers will be unhappy if they don’t see a major improvement.”

“I think that’s really important that everybody should know there are no treatments where there’s 100 percent cure,” added Til.

Ekaterina Malievskaia, co-founder, Compass Pathways, and Dame Til Wykes, head of school for Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, King’s College London, were in conversation with Theo Kelly, co-founder and CEO, Mentis on the HealthConf stage at Web Summit 2022.

Subscribe to 🎙️ The Next Stage 🎙️ wherever you get your podcasts, and download this episode – or listen on the embedded player above right now.

Join us in Lisbon next year for more exciting talks. Pre-register now for your Web Summit 2023 tickets.

Main image of Ekaterina Malievskaia, co-founder, Compass Pathways, Dame Til Wykes, head of school for Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, King’s College London, and, Theo Kelly, co-founder and CEO, Mentis, on the HealthConf stage. Lukas Schulze/Web Summit