Podcast: LSD 'Deserves To Reclaim Its Spot At The Lead Of The Path For Psychedelics' Says MindMed's R. Barrow

Welcome to a new episode of the Benzinga Psychedelics Podcast where we’re joined by Robert Barrow, CEO of Mind Medicine (MindMed) MNMD, which has taken the development of LSD-based therapy to new heights. The biopharma company recently obtained a "breakthrough therapy" designation for the treatment of generalized anxiety from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA.) 

LSD, illegal in the U.S., is classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as a Schedule I drug -meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical treatments.  

However, there is growing interest in LSD's potential therapeutic uses for conditions like alcoholism, depression and anxiety. Studies like MIndMed's are moving closer to proving its benefits.

In our podcast, we delve into LSD's universe and particularly how MindMed is advancing the clinical development of its LSD-like drug, MM-120, for the treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. We look at the main insights from the latest clinical trials, measuring dose-response effects, comparison with traditional anxiety medications and a look at the industry's next 12 months.

Listen to the full podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

LSD Focus

After joining MindMed as Chief Development Officer in January 2021, Barrow was named interim CEO in mid-2021 then CEO in December 2021. 

His 10+ years of serving in different roles within the pharmaceutical industry as a drug development leader, research programs designer and regulatory consulting have acquainted him with the business's ins and outs.

In his years working in the psychedelics field before MindMed, Barrow asked leading academic researchers why there has been so little research on LSD as compared to other psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin. He found that it had more to do with its cultural inheritance from the War on Drugs than with science.

"LSD is the most storied and stigmatized, wronged historically -as the whole class has been; but LSD really stood out," Barrow says. 

LSD and psilocybin were both manufactured and widely distributed by Sandoz before the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).  

"And the real focus, what captured the imagination and excitement of psychiatry back in the day, was LSD. The prominence of LSD really stood out from the rest of the field. The fact that it had been less prominent in the early renaissance of this drug class was less of a scientific one and more of a political one. But there's something unique about this molecule, within the drug class, that really deserves to reclaim its spot at the lead of the path of psychedelics." 

LSD has a different pharmacology and different receptors which, in Barrow's words, "seem to drive a deeper or higher magnitude introspection that could ultimately lead to better outcomes," including larger or more durable effects. The latest data being generated in MindMed's trials (now about to enter Phase 3) seems to support that hypothesis. 

Listen to the full episode on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts by searching for “Benzinga Interviews.”

Photo courtesy of Mind Medicine (MindMed.)