Since the 1950s researchers have known psychedelic drugs could have medical applications, but what of research today? Associate Professor Suresh Muthukumaraswamy talks at Raising the Bar 2021.

Psychedelic drugs were discovered to have medical applications back in the 1950s, but what's going on with research today?

Neuropsychopharmacologist Suresh Muthukumaraswamy breaks down the current situation at Auckland University's live event series Raising the Bar.

Listen to the talk

Since the 1950s, researchers have known psychedelic drugs could have medical applications, but moral panic and the 'war on drugs' stopped this from getting any traction.

Until today, that is, when researchers are examining whether psychedelic drugs could help reduce our rates of depression, addiction and suicide.

This renaissance of research interest may offer a pathway for psychedelics to be introduced as important new medicines. However, according to Auckland University associate professor Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, many ethical and practical dilemmas are facing publicly-funded researchers as well as the for-profit drug industry. As a result, progress in this area is likely to be slow.

For a drug company to invest a billion dollars in a drug development programme, they've got to be able to make money off it, Muthukumaraswamy says.

But the fact that drugs like LSD and psilocybin have been around for decades means that getting a patent may be difficult.

So researchers are instead flipping the chemicals around and making variations to see if they could be therapeutic (while protecting the ability of the company to make money out of the finished drug once it gets onto the market).

The problem with this is that "once you flip a molecule around then you're way back at phase one of the drug development process", he says.

"And then you've got to start all the way back at the beginning. Even though we know LSD is pretty safe, we're going to have to go all the way back, do all the pre-clinical testing, and then you're looking at a ten-year pathway to create this new therapy."

Some companies are getting around this by trying to find an alternative to patenting an already-existing molecule, Muthukumaraswamy says.

They might put it in some kind of spray, or in a specific formulation that could be patented. Or maybe some kind of bespoke psychotherapy that goes alongside that drug could be patented. That way the cost of the drug development could be recouped.

"We're kind of stuck in a way ... this is how medicines are produced."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details