Terran Biosciences (“Terran”), a biotech platform company dedicated to the development of transformational therapeutics for neurological and psychiatric diseases, has announced the publication of a PCT patent application covering novel prodrugs of psilocin. Psilocin and psilocybin are both active compounds in psychedelic mushrooms, and psilocybin is the most well-studied prodrug of psilocin. Psilocybin, which is converted into psilocin in the body, has been used by humans for thousands of years and recent clinical studies suggest psilocybin is efficacious in treating depression.
However, psilocybin’s pharmacokinetic properties may limit its therapeutic potential. Due to the time to reach effective levels of psilocin in the body from an oral dose of psilocybin and the prolonged duration of effect, six-hour therapeutic sessions have been required, limiting the number of patients that can be treated per day. Terran has designed novel, faster-acting prodrugs of psilocin that demonstrate a shorter duration of activity compared to psilocybin in animal studies. For cases where longer therapeutic sessions may be useful, Terran has also designed prodrugs with longer durations of activity than psilocybin to enable facilitators to conduct longer therapy sessions uninterrupted.
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Terran’s unique prodrugs of psilocin are novel compounds that are designed to be given as a single oral dose, and then breakdown in order to release high levels of the original active molecule in the brain. With new data from animal models published in this PCT patent application, Terran believes these prodrugs may represent the most comprehensive examples of improved prodrugs of psilocin compared to psilocybin. While there have been a number of other approaches to control the pharmacokinetic profile of psilocin, including intravenous and sublingual methods of administration, Terran believes an orally active prodrug would provide the best use profile for both patients and clinicians.
Dr. Sam Clark, Terran’s CEO commented, “Psilocybin is considered to be one of the most medically important psychedelic therapeutics, but similar to other first-generation psychedelics, there are a number of limitations to its pharmacokinetics that may ultimately reduce its use in the clinic. I am extremely proud of our medicinal chemistry team who has produced these exciting breakthroughs, yielding a portfolio of new Terran compounds that demonstrate significant pharmacokinetic improvements over psilocybin.
SOURCE: PR Newswire