LSD-assisted therapy resulted in anxiety improvement in study

[Image courtesy of PubChem]

A randomized placebo-controlled Phase 2 study found that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)–assisted therapy yielded significant reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms for up to 16 weeks.

The data from the study was recently published in the peer-reviewed Biological Psychiatry.

Researchers at the University Hospital Basel (UHB) conducted the investigator-initiated study, which involved 42 patients.

While there was a substantial amount of research on LSD-assisted therapy in the 1950s and 1960s, psilocybin has emerged as a more popular compound for psychedelic-based therapy in recent years.

In the data published in Biological Psychiatry, researchers used Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory–Global (STAI-G) score and the HAM-D-21 (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale) to quantify anxiety and depression, respectively. Investigators also used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) in the study.

Patients who received LSD-assisted therapy had a 16.2 point drop in STAI-G scores at 16 weeks after treatment. Similarly, LSD recipients had a 7.0 point drop in the HAM-D-21 test and a 6.1 point drop on the BDI.

LSD was generally well tolerated in the study, but 19% of patients reported transient negative side effects from the LSD treatment. One patient had a treatment-related serious adverse event (acute transient anxiety).

The psychedelic medicine firm MindMed (Nasdaq:MNMD) is touting the positive data as it moves forward with a Phase 2b dose-optimization trial of MM-120, a pharmaceutically optimized type of LSD. MindMed believes that the data from the UHB study supports the clinical development of its proprietary formulation of LSD.

MindMed has an exclusive multi-year research partnership with UHB and holds exclusive rights to the university’s research on LSD and related compounds.

“This was an investigator-initiated Phase 2 study led by MindMed collaborators at University Hospital Basel (UHB), Dr. Frederike Holze and Prof. Dr. Matthias Liechti which further reinforces the positive preliminary evidence for LSD in patients who suffer from anxiety disorders,” said MindMed CEO Robert Barrow. “MindMed has a broad, multi-year exclusive research partnership with UHB in addition to exclusive worldwide rights to the data, compounds and patent rights associated with UHB’s research on LSD and other compounds.”

LSD remains a Schedule I drug in the U.S., meaning that the federal government believes it to have no accepted medical use with a high potential for abuse.

The federal government, however, may be warming to the prospect of psychedelic-assisted therapy to combat spiraling rates of depression and anxiety. A leaked SAMHSA letter indicates that FDA is likely to approve in the coming years.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow said in an NIH psychedelic workshop that the “train has left the station” regarding the therapeutic use of psychedelics. A letter from several members of Congress dated February 11, 2022 indicates that the FDA would likely approve MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for depression within approximately 24 months.