Two Novel Chemical Entitities Show Early Potential for Significant Treatment Improvement in Depression
Psilera, a biopharmaceutical company optimizing next-generation mental health treatments with a technology-enabled platform, announces promising results on two patent-pending N,N-dimethyltryptamine ("DMT") analogues, PSIL-001 and PSIL-002. Psilera's new chemical entity ("NCE") library contains promising compounds with non-hallucinogenic effects when administered at therapeutic dosages in various preclinical models.
PSIL-001 and PSIL-002 showed similar preclinical efficacy to psilacetin, a positive control, in the forced swim test depression model without hallucinations via the head twitch response. Psilacetin produces psilocin, the psychedelic active ingredient with FDA breakthrough therapy designation for treatment-resistant depression. Single doses of PSIL-001 and PSIL-002 produced rapid antidepressant effects, while most current FDA-approved antidepressants take multiple doses to show efficacy.
Repeat doses of PSIL-001 and PSIL-002 also showed improvement in learning and memory tasks statistically superior to psilacetin. These important characteristics could translate to neurodegenerative disorders like dementia and Alzheimer's disease which inspired a grant application by Psilera to study their NCEs in Alzheimer's disease.
"We are excited to see the unique results exhibited by PSIL-001 and PSIL-002," said Dr. Jackie von Salm, co-founder and CSO of Psilera. "We are finally documenting much needed evidence for our hypothesis that small, strategic chemical changes to existing psychedelic compounds can greatly reduce hallucinations while maintaining efficacy. These are just two of many NCEs in our library which could greatly impact patients suffering from neurological disorders."
