New Sublingual Psychedelic Drug Candidate Created For Depression And Anxiety In Alzheimer's

Psychedelics R&D biotech Biomind Labs Inc. BMNDF has completed the development of a novel sublingual formulation and the first production batch for testing in its Phase 2 trial on proprietary 5-MeO-DMT-based drug candidate, BMND08, for the treatment of depression and anxiety states in people with Alzheimer’s-type cognitive impairment.

Biomind’s CEO Alejandro Antalich sees this step as a new milestone that strengthens the company’s “vertically integrated” strategy and that can potentially alleviate the suffering of people with this condition.

“During the last decades, science has demonstrated that life expectancy can be extended but this realization may not be as good as expected. For example, does it make sense to live longer if we are not able to even remember our name or recognize a close relative? The consequences of the current lifestyle, routine, long-term neurological effects from Covid-19, plus the lack of brain training, have turned neurodegenerative diseases into common diseases,” Antalich said.

That is why, he explains, Biomind’s main driver is to find a solution for these health conditions and to potentially improve patients’ neuroplasticity. “Anyone who has a relative with a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s would give everything to stop the invisible, slow and irreversible suffering that completely extinguishes the quality of life,” the CEO stated. 

What the new, sublingual administration route allows is, among other things, “convenient dosing for geriatric and psychiatric uncooperative patients with dysphagia (difficulty in swallowing),” quick absorption, predictable potency, reduced interaction with other pharma and foods and ease of administration compared to other delivery technologies. 

“The main objective of developing this formulation was based on providing a scalable formulation that would be inexpensive, convenient for repeated and prolonged use, and pain-free,” Biomind’s CSO Dr. Paola Díaz Dellavalle added.

Tryptamines such as 5-MeO-DMT, Díaz Dellavalle explained, become neurochemically inactive when administered orally, since the drug is degraded by monoamine oxidase enzymes present in the gastrointestinal tract which prevent its absorption to the circulatory system and the central nervous system. 

That is why the oral route of administration needs monoamine oxidase inhibitors added in order to protect 5-MeO-DMT from the first pass-metabolism. “This factor considerably increases the complexity of the formulation, which maximizes the achievement,” Biomind’s CSO concluded.

Photo courtesy of PopTika on Shutterstock and Harbin on Wikimedia Commons.