FutureCast | Back to the future: How old drugs are enabling new discoveries and a new era for treating depression
Featuring Zach Scheiner, Becca Silberman, and Peter Kolchinsky
On RApport's FutureCast, the RA Capital team discusses how today's technology and policy trends could improve health and life on Earth for generations to come.
RA Capital has developed a variety of short, free, self-guided online learning modules called RA University. Our goal is to share practical and theoretical concepts fundamental to the biotech industry that aren't being presented anywhere else.
December 12, 2022
In today’s FutureCast discussion, RA Capital Principal Zach Scheiner, Senior Associate Becca Silberman, and Managing Partner Peter Kolchinsky talk about the past, present and future of depression therapies and why we’re confident that new uses and forms of old molecules, including psychedelics, will, in the next decade, bring relief to many of those among us who suffer from untreatable depression. Hop in the DeLorean with us at 88 miles per hour as we go 'Back to the Future'.
Almost 10% of people in the US have had an episode of depression. Of people in the United States with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), more than a third are treatment resistant - meaning they have not responded to two or more medications - and many of those never find a treatment that works. That’s because the majority of approved treatments rely on just one or two mechanisms of action, so no matter how many drugs people try, many will never respond. Add in unpleasant side effects, a long waiting period between taking the drug and experiencing relief, and insurance barriers to accessing the latest treatments, and you see a number of unmet needs in MDD.
New psychedelic medicines may hold the solution. Research on ketamine (aka special K), psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), and 5-MeO-DMT (which the National Park Service had to warn people not to lick off of bufo toads), is revealing new mechanisms that may bring hope to treatment-resistant patients.
But what does this mean for the DEA? Will patients get insurance-covered shroom trips? Won’t people abuse these drugs? We tackle these questions and much more in this, FutureCast’s first episode.
Please click here for important RA Capital disclosures.
Related reading
