Our next company works to help people with a focus on natural psychedelics. Psyence Group uses natural psilocybin products to heal psychological trauma and to calm the mind during someone’s last stage of life while in palliative care.
Here with us today is the CEO of Psyence Group, Dr. Neil Maresky.
TMH: Psyence Group really does seem like a company that cares about the people that use its products. When it was first started, was the mission always to help people nearing the end of their lives stay comfortable?
NM: We are a patient-centric company, and every decision we make is centred around patient outcomes. It’s around society and humanity and how we can impact in a positive way humanity. We are a nature-based company, so we extract medicines from plants and plant-based medicine with the aim of helping patients who are suffering from a terminal illness with no curable intent available in the last months of their lives. Our focus is on palliative care and helping these patients through the anxiety and depression that they’re experiencing.
TMH: In January, the company partnered with Eden Labs. You will be working together to produce water-soluble, stabilized psilocybin powder naturally occurring in the mushrooms. Can you tell us more about the technology and what this means for the company?
NM: This is an incredible partnership that we recently agreed to and Eden Labs is based in the US and has over 25 years of experience in extracting medicine from plants and has state-of-the-art technology. We’ve partnered with them. We have our own federally licensed natural psilocybin-producing facility in Southern Africa and using their technology with our growing operation in South Africa, we believe that we will be able to come up with state-of-the-art formulations extractions that ultimately will be progressed into our clinical trial program for the consumption and treatment of patients around the world.
TMH: As you know, there has been lots of news for the company just in 20-23 alone. Your pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin mushroom extract has been exported through the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization, or CMO. Why is expanding to the UK so crucial for the company, and why right now?
NM: Well, let me just take a step back. It’s been an incredibly busy last quarter of 2022, and it really was unrelenting in terms of going into 2023. So, it’s crazy how much we’ve achieved this year so far. The export to the UK was the third of our global exports. We’ve exported to Europe, we’ve exported to Canada, and now to the UK. These exports are significant milestones and really underscore the model of becoming a leading psilocybin producer based in Southern Africa that can export globally. The reason behind the recent export to the UK is our partnership with the UK CMO, which is a contract drug manufacturing organization that will continue to assist us in the extraction and formulation, ultimately culminating in pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin that can be utilized in clinical trials in phase two clinical trials, as well as allowing us to produce medicines and pharmaceutical grade product that can be used by other organizations across the world for further research and development. We are incredibly excited about this partnership, and it really underscores one of the pillars of our strategy of becoming a leading psilocybin producer for global consumption.
TMH: Are there any updates on the LOI for the double-blind study which will be taking place in Melbourne?
NM: The Australia environment is incredibly attractive to us for a number of reasons. We’ve partnered with iNGENū, which is a leading psychedelic CRO based out of Australia. We can, at the same time, take advantage of the Australian landscape for R&D and benefit from their tax rebates for our clinical trials, making it a very cost-efficient endeavour. Plus, iNGENū is well-versed in the sector and is well-versed in engaging with the FDA. Ultimately, we will execute a Phase II B study in Australia in palliative care and at the same time, working with our CRO partner, we will be able to consolidate a global regulatory strategy that ultimately would lead towards an approval of our product in palliative care in the not too distant future. So, it’s incredibly exciting to have this partnership in Australia, and we are working tirelessly in terms of executing the initial phases of setting up a study. It’s really amazing progress for our company.
TMH: As for becoming a tri-listed company. How much longer till we see Psyence Group on the NASDAQ?
NM: In short, Psyence Biomed has merged with NewCourt SPAC, which is listed on the NASDAQ, which is our clinical trials division. Listing on the NASDAQ is an incredible opportunity for us as a company. It gives us access to a whole new variety and size of investor pool, but more importantly, this deal begins to recognize the value of Psyence as a life science biotech company and the ability to deliver true value to its shareholders. There are still a few hurdles to go, and we are working tirelessly daily to address these hopefully, we’ll have good news on the progress in the not-too-distant future.
TMH: I have to say as well, congrats on the new partnership with Filament Health, but how is the partnership able to help patients around the world?
NM: All these strategies are coming under the umbrella of our overall corporate strategy, which will be the first company to get a licensed natural product in psilocybin for palliative care. Partnering with Filament Health was an incredibly important milestone. Our partnership with Filament Health ultimately is only in palliative care utilizing their technology in terms of bringing it into our clinical trials and ultimately bringing this to commercialization for patients who are suffering from a terminal illness and have been diagnosed with incurable cancer and are in palliative care. So, our partnership with Filament is incredibly important to our overall development strategy.
TMH: What can investors expect from Psyence in 2023?
NM: We have got a phase two B trial in Australia that will commence. We’re gonna engage in the FDA in 2023. We are looking for progress on our merger with the NewCourt SPAC and a listing on NASDAQ. We can expect progress on developing our own API with the UK export.
Thanks again for joining us and answering our questions, Dr. Maresky.
Again, we’ve been speaking with Dr. Neil Maresky, CEO of Psyence Group. To stay up to date on the company, follow them at psyence.com/investors or track them down on the CSE under the ticker symbol PSYG.
A special thanks to you, our viewers, for joining us today. I’m Brieanna McCutcheon, and thanks for watching The Top Line.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by The Market Herald.