David Olson , a UC Davis neuroscientist , is developing psychedelic drugs to help treat depression . In 2019 , Olson cofounded Delix Therapeutics to bring his drugs to market , and the startup recently closed a $ 70 million Series A funding round . PHOTO BY FRED GREAVES
psychosis in patients with a family history of schizophrenia or other serious mental illnesses .
Psilocybin causes a transient increase in blood pressure , which can be dangerous for those with heart problems . Ibogaine , a drug derived from a West African shrub , has shown potential for treating addiction but can have “ potentially fatal heart problems .” For some potential patients , the mere thought of entering into an altered state of consciousness can sway them away from treatment .
But a larger problem is that psychedelic-assisted therapy can be cost prohibitive . Patients must be monitored for up to eight hours after they take the drug , and most also receive therapy sessions before and after dosage . “ It ’ s certainly my concern that economically disadvantaged people will have a hard time accessing these treatments ,” says Peter Hendricks , a psychologist and professor at the University of Alabama School of Public Health in Birmingham .
Hendricks studies the use of psilocybin to treat substance use disorders . He worries psychedelics could follow a similar market trajectory to the ketamine-derivative esketamine . After research suggested the dissociative drug helps alleviate treatment-resistant depression , the FDA approved it for psychiatric use . But because the drug is so expensive to administer , it ’ s not often accessible via insurance . Most who access it do so through private pay clinics with hefty price tags . “ And yet , many of the conditions that we ’ re evaluating , like substance use disorders , tend to disproportionately affect those of low income ,” Hendricks says .
Olson also believes the inaccessibility of ketamine portends a similar future for psychedelic clinics . “ It ’ s like a 1 percenter type issue . People who have the money to pay for expensive clinics , they ’ re getting the help that they need ,” he says . “ The 99 percent of people just don ’ t have that type of money .”
He believes the key to making psychedelics accessible is creating a treatment that patients can safely take in their own home , without costly supervision . “ We need to think about a more scalable alternative ,” Olson says . “ Something so safe that you can pick them up at a retail pharmacy and take them as you would ibuprofen .”
In 2018 , Olson ’ s team published a paper demonstrating that psychedelics like psilocybin and ibogaine work by activating the brain ’ s 5-HT2A receptor , which promotes the creation of new pathways in the brain . That brainrewiring ability is why psilocybin and other psychedelics can treat serious mental health conditions with just a single dose .
Olson calls chemicals with this ability “ psychoplastogens .” But he says not all psychoplastogenic drugs produce a psychedelic high . Olson ’ s research uses the basic skeleton of psychedelic molecules , but tweaks their components to alter the effects of the drug .
In 2020 , Olson published a paper in the scientific journal Nature documenting a novel version of ibogaine .
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