As medical director of the Aquilino Cancer Center, Dr. Manish Agrawal has seen the progress made possible by cancer research. Death rates from cancer have declined steadily among men and women.

But Dr. Agrawal has also seen patients struggle with depression and anxiety. Some cannot get the help they need.

“There’s so much emotional and psychological suffering that cancer patients and their families go through,” he says, “We never fully address that.”

Now, a small group of patients at Aquilino, an outpatient treatment center at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, MD, will have the chance to try something new — treatment that combines group therapy with a single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic drug that is the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms. Psilocybin is illegal, but the government gives select researchers permission to use it in controlled clinical settings.

You can read the rest of this story on Medium

Philanthropic dollars helped to create today's psychedelic renaissance by funding medical research into the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin and LSD. The research has generated a great deal of excitement.

Now, startup companies want to bring psychedelic medicines to market. That's the topic of a story that I posted today at Medium.

Here's how it begins:

Despite Covid-19, a crashing economy and formidable legal obstacles, a growing number of entrepreneurs and investors are betting that medicines derived from psychedelic drugs can become a real business and heal millions of people. They are joining the researchers, activists, philanthropists and journalists who until now have been driving what’s been called the psychedelic renaissance.

A dozen or more startup companies are developing medicines from psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine and LSD, all of which are illegal in the US, as well as from ketamine, a legal anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties. They hope to treat a surprisingly wide range of mental conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, addiction, even Alzheimer’s disease.

This is excellent news. Developing new drugs is an expensive proposition. Especially in today's tough environment for fundraising, nonprofits are likely to have a hard time bringing in enough donations to stage clinical trials, secure regulatory approval, manufacture and distribute the medicines, persuade doctors to use them and convince insurance companies to pay for them.

Investors, by contrast, may be willing to risk their money with the hope of eventually making a financial return.

You can read the full story here on Medium.