MindMed Announces $5 Million in Funding for Psychedelic Medicine Research Training

MindMed, the psychedelic biotech firm, recently announced a commitment to provide $5 million over five years for a psychedelic medicine research training program in collaboration with NYU Langone Health and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The program will focus on psychedelic-assisted therapies and psychedelic-inspired medicines.

In a news release announcing the initiative, MindMed said it is aiming to recruit and train psychiatrists and clinical investigators to develop tools that can expand and optimize the delivery if psychedelic-assisted therapies and psychedelic-inspired medicines. The training program, the first phase of an effort to establish a Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health, will initially focus on the treatment of substance use disorders, particularly opioid use disorder and alcohol addiction.

The training program will be managed by Michael Bogenschutz, MD, who has served as the primary investigator on efforts toward obtaining FDA approval for the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for alcohol use disorder. Stephen Ross, MD, a psychedelic medicine researcher and addiction psychiatrist, will serve as program director.

MindMed’s work with NYU Grossman dates back to 2009, as the parties have collaborated on the development of a molecule for treating opioid use disorder patients.

“NYU Langone Health’s training of the next generation of researchers and psychiatrists will help to advance and hopefully soon deploy this emerging category of medicines including psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder and MindMed’s ibogaine-derived molecule 18-MC for Opioid Use Disorder patients,” Charles R. Marmar, MD, chairman of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, said in a news release.