Delix's Non-Hallucinogenic Psychoplastogen Enters Phase 1 Trial

Delix Therapeutics, a neuroscience company developing novel neuroplasticity-promoting therapeutics for psychiatric and neurological conditions, received regulatory approval and is set to commence recruitment for a Phase 1 clinical trial on its non-hallucinogenic psychoplastogen lead drug candidate, DLX-001.

Psychoplastogens are neuroplasticity-promoting therapeutics and the company’s platform includes several of them. All are based on the work by co-founder and CIO David E. Olson at UC-Davis in the discovery of novel compounds showing significant therapeutic potential without the hallucinogenic side effects of first- and second-gen psychedelic psychoplastogens, even at high doses, in preclinical models.

Actually, Delix’s library of more than 1,300 compounds contains multiple compounds inspired by psychedelics while also cases of completely novel chemical matter unrelated to psychedelics yet maintaining the psychoplastogenic activity.

See also: Delix: Elucidating How Psychedelics Actually Induce Neuroplasticity Vs. SSRIs

The upcoming trial on DLX-001 will enroll approximately 100 healthy volunteers and will assess safety, pharmacokinetics, psychometric functions and markers of brain activity and synaptic plasticity at the Center for Human Drug Research (CHDR) in the Netherlands.

Delix CEO Mark Rus says this is an important step forward for the company as well as for the field of neuroplasticity promoting therapeutics overall, following years of “significant preclinical results” and the potential of these scalable non-hallucinogenic compounds “to treat a variety of conditions as safe and effective take-at-home medicines.”

The company was selected as a leading academic spinout by the Nature Biotechnology magazine.

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by Pexels.