One in three people will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime, PTSD went more than 20 years without a new approved treatment, and spending keeps rising while outcomes keep getting worse. Against that backdrop, Australia has become the first country in the world where psychiatrists can prescribe MDMA and psilocybin.
In this episode, host Emily Casey sits down with Dr Michael Winlo, Chief Scientific Officer at Emyria, the company behind the Empax network of psychedelic-assisted therapy clinics. Michael trained as a doctor, spent four years in Palantir's healthcare team in Silicon Valley, then returned to Perth to run a clinical trial site — an experience that convinced him care delivery and evidence generation belong together, and led to Emyria.
Michael explains how the two legal treatments actually work. MDMA floods the brain with serotonin and oxytocin, quietens an overactive amygdala and lets patients with post-traumatic stress disorder work through trauma in therapy without being overwhelmed by fear or shame. Psilocybin quietens the default mode network behind rumination and negative self-talk — Michael's metaphor is shaking up a snow globe and letting the snow settle into new patterns — and both drugs open a roughly seven-day window of heightened neuroplasticity that therapy can use.
The pair trace the strange history that got us here: MDMA first synthesised by Merck in 1912, psychedelics on the cover of psychiatry journals in the 1960s, roughly 500,000 people given MDMA in therapeutic settings before the war on drugs shut the research down. Charitable funding through MAPS kept the science alive, and the resulting phase 2 and 3 trials left the TGA unable to maintain that these drugs had no therapeutic value — leading to the world-first rescheduling in 2023.
Michael then walks through what treatment at an Empax clinic involves: careful screening, a two-therapist dyad that stays with the patient for the whole journey, six-to-eight-hour dosing days in a low-stimulus room, and integration sessions that turn insights into durable habits. Emyria has now treated more than 100 patients, with rapid improvement that appears durable for most — results that have brought funders like Medibank and the Department of Veterans' Affairs on board.
The conversation closes on what it will take to make this mainstream: health-economic evidence for a treatment that costs around $10,000 a dosing cycle, the watershed of a first FDA approval, more sensible regulation of who can deliver therapy, and the infrastructure and training to meet demand. Michael argues psychedelics are still under-hyped — used today as a last resort when they may do the most good earlier in a patient's journey — and leaves clinicians with one message: learn with your patients.
GuestDr Michael Winlo is Chief Scientific Officer at Emyria, the ASX-listed company behind the Empax network of psychedelic-assisted therapy clinics, treating post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depression under the TGA's Authorised Prescriber Scheme. Trained as a medical doctor, he spent four years in Palantir's healthcare team in Silicon Valley and led Perth's Linear Clinical Research before joining Emyria to build a model of care that treats patients and generates evidence at the same time.
Chapters00:00 Psychedelics return to healthcare
00:57 What Emyria and the Empax clinics do
02:08 From medicine to Palantir and back to Perth
08:32 Why mental health care is falling behind
12:37 What psychedelics actually are
13:55 How MDMA-assisted therapy works
17:44 Psilocybin and the default mode network
21:05 A century of history: from Merck to the war on drugs
24:18 The revival: MAPS, new trials and Australia's rescheduling
27:17 Why psychiatry innovates slowly
29:47 Inside treatment: screening, dosing days and integration
33:33 The data so far: 100+ patients, Medibank and the DVA
35:18 Ketamine and the coming wave of new treatments
36:47 FDA approval and the funding shift
43:30 Emyria's ten-year vision
45:47 Bottlenecks: training, regulation and infrastructure
47:31 Psychedelic therapy in 2035
49:09 Rapid fire: hype, books and one message for clinicians
Links and resourcesEmyria: https://emyria.com/
Empax Centre: https://empaxcentre.com/
TGA — re-scheduling of psilocybin and MDMA, questions and answers: https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/publication/scheduling-decisions-final/notice-final-decision-amend-or-not-amend-current-poisons-standard-june-2022-acms-38-psilocybine-and-mdma/re-scheduling-psilocybin-and-mdma-poisons-standard-questions-and-answers
MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies): https://maps.org/
COMPASS Pathways: https://compasspathway.com/
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: https://www.diamandis.com/podcast
About the hostEmily Casey is the founder of What the Health and host of the show, making major developments in health technology and innovation easier to understand.
What the Health is brought to you in partnership with Tenmile Ventures.
What the Health is part of Day One Network, the podcast and media network from W2D1 Media: https://dayone.fm/
