Psychedelics Treating Alcohol Use Disorder | Clairvoyant Therapeutics

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that alcohol consumption contributes to 3 million deaths globally. The cost of the disease is not just measured in deaths and burden of disease; it also has been estimated to cost society $150 billion globally per year. The current medications and therapies are failing. Something new has to be adopted to tackle this issue—enter psychedelics (specifically psilocybin or magic mushrooms) and their associated psychotherapy to treat alcohol-use disorder.
“Where psilocybin has a place, current therapies are really not therapies to treat the condition, they are abstinence therapies, they are very much focused on preventing drinking on an ongoing basis creating side effects or abnormal experiences for people if they do drink, whereas psilocybin along with psychotherapy is really focused on changing habits. one of the keys of psilocybin as a therapeutic treatment is that patients really changes their habits.” – Clairvoyant Therapeutics Director Greg Engel
Clairvoyant Therapeutics is a privately-held psychedelics company focused on the clinical validation of psilocybin in Canada, E.U. & the U.K.
Last year Clairvoyant completed a positive pre-CTA (Clinical Trial Application) meeting with Health Canada for its phase 2 psilocybin therapy trial. This year it plans to earn approval from Health Canada to initiate a phase 2 psilocybin therapy trial.
The new director of Clairvoyant, Greg Engel, should need no introduction to the Midas Letter audience, having been CEO of Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY, TSE:TLRY), Organigram Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:OGI, TSE:OGI) and the General Manager of Forest Laboratories and Encysive (now part of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)).
“My background prior to cannabis was in biotech and pharma and have experience starting a number of different biotech and pharma companies. I was really excited about Clairvoyants plans, taking a very rigorous short-path, clinical path program so being able to jump into a late-stage phase 2 trial at this point. We want to get to a point where we have proven ourselves, but not too far in the future I think you’ll see the company go public” – Clairvoyant Therapeutics Director Greg Engel
Greg Engel’s goal for Clairvoyant Therapeutics is to work on its psilocybin product until regulatory submissions are possible. At which point, the drug will then be able to be reimbursed by private and public insurers for patients to use.
If Clairvoyant can capture just 1-2% of the market share of this disease, the drug potential for this new alcohol-use disorder medicine is in the hundreds of millions.