Canadian Psychedelics Firm And Queens College Develop New Transdermal Drug Delivery System

Life and sciences R&D company Biomind Labs Inc. BMNDF received a Controlled Substances License to begin an eight-month exclusive collaboration with Queen’s University of Belfast to produce and evaluate rapidly-dissolving and sustained-release hydrogel-forming microneedle arrays designed for the transdermal delivery of its proprietary DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and mescaline.

Biomind Labs recently announced the completion of the dosage stage of its Phase 2 clinical trial on a DMT-based compound for the Treatment-Resistant Depression disorder, while it is additionally undergoing clinical research of ayahuasca for the treatment of that same condition. 

Through its acceleration platform, Biomind aims to provide patients access to affordable and modern treatments. CEO Alejandro Antalich expects that the partnership will sustain the company’s goal to continue expanding operations throughout the UK and its IP portfolio while also “provide us with a first mover advantage in offering a novel drug delivery system where the release can be controlled.”

Antalich further commented that “Such a disruptive drug delivery approach can go beyond a full psychedelic experience, allowing us to broaden our total addressable market. We could potentially be talking about the next generation treatment for inflammation, pain and neurodegenerative disorders, by way of a comfortable drug delivery solution with a strong emphasis on improving therapeutic outcomes for patients.”

How Microneedling Drug Delivery Works

Polymeric microneedle array patches (MAPs) allow drugs to access the human body through the outer layer of the skin, producing no pain while creating temporary micro-channels for the transdermal diffusion of the medicine. Through the dense network of blood vessels present in the deeper layers of the skin, drugs can be absorbed into the blood and distributed throughout the entire body.

This technology presents other advantages such as avoiding first-pass metabolism and drug delivery in a rate-controlled or long-acting manner and potentially reducing the appearance of side effects and dosing frequency.

Photo courtesy of Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels and Harbin on Wikimedia Commons.