Inebriation Remedy And Breakthrough MS Treatment: Meet FSD Pharma

Among a biotech space bursting with innovation, one company stands out as it is developing two assets at once: a ready-for-market drink that can take someone from a drinking state to mental and physical composure in record time and a potential breakthrough therapy for Multiple Sclerosis. Meet FSD Pharma HUGE, which began trading on CSE as a licensed cannabis producer. Its 650,000 sq. ft. plant brought about corresponding production gains. 

“When we started out we caught the cannabis wave,” founder and CEO Zeeshan Saeed told Benzinga. FSD then moved on to trading on NASDAQ. With an interim chapter of overvaluation, a proxy war (won by management in 2021,) short-selling and general shortages in the cannabis space, the team eventually surrendered FSD’s production license and sold its facility in 2020. It then moved into the biotech world through the acquisition of Lucid Psycheceutical.

The team at Lucid is composed of world-class scientists, researchers and doctors from the University of Toronto and Stanford. It also has a connection to the Canadian government via Ontario’s ex-health minister and current FSD board member.

Alcohol Relief

“Mental alertness and detoxification” following alcohol consumption is UNBUZZD’s promise. Its developers expect, based on research, that it provides relief from inebriation, helping the body accelerate alcohol metabolism and leading to reduced Breath Alcohol Concentration (BrAC).

How Does It Work?

Ethanol goes into the stomach and intestines and gets absorbed by the body, which has a limit in terms of how much it can metabolize. With regular excess consumption, effects go up to the CNS, compromising brain functions and motor skills.

UNBUZZD is not a magical path to sobriety nor a remedy for alcohol use disorder. Instead, the three natural ingredients in the unique formulation aid with a fast (15-30 min) and effective recovery from inebriation, helping with liver and brain function and restoring normal lifestyle.

The burden of the aftermath effects of excess alcohol consumption is broadly known. Lucid’s CEO, Dr. Lakshmi Kotra, says the research team considered both its “longer” effects (aka hangover) as well as its immediate ones. 

UNBUZZD is expected to hit the natural health products market by end of Q1 2024 through a license operated by Celly Nutrition, an FSD Pharma spin-out company. The project is being led by marketing and business icons Jerry David (Celsius,) Kevin Harrington (original Shark Tank,) and John Duffy Jr. (Coca-Cola.)

The Lucid team currently continues to work on improvements, safety trials and new products, including a hospital line to provide ER staff with an option to treat inebriation, reducing the costs of hospitalization.

Management is hyped indeed, imagining UNBUZZD’s disruptiveness will go as far as being conveyed by paramedics, police officers and airlines. 

Psychedelics concierge Zappy Zapolin is among the people who’ve tried the drink. For him, UNBUZZD took effect “about five minutes” after  he drank, making him feel somewhat sober, “no longer slurring my words.” That outcome was reflected in the breathalyzer. 

Pioneering Re-Myelination

The biotech’s second product is drug candidate Lucid-MS, a Novel Chemical Entity (NCE) designed for the potential treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

“Available ‘immunomodulatory’ therapies are immunosuppressants, weakening the immune system so it cannot damage the myelin as much and thus slow down the disease’s progression, but don’t stop it. Additionally, these medications come with difficult side effects,” Saeed said. 

FSD’s molecule is not an immunosuppressant, and reportedly surpasses myelin damage halt (demyelination) by showing to reverse it through neuronal health recovery or, “re-myelination.”

“So it is in a way classified as a neuroprotective agent, and it´s a first-in-class non-modulatory novel mechanism,” commented Dr. Koltra, adding that market research shows such compounds would be “very much required” for long-term patient treatment.

With encouraging preclinical results, the company has completed single dosing of Phase 1’s first cohorts (healthy volunteers) and is on track for multiple dosing. 

2022’s global MS treatment market was estimated at $23 billion. Lucid’s work evaluating potential drug candidates for this condition spans over a decade.

Saeed believes that “if it works in MS, then there is a potential that it will work in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's,” considering demyelination is their shared underlying cause.

Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash