Magic mushrooms have cleared a significant hurdle for use in treating depression after a clinical trial found that their active ingredient was safe.
The findings are a step towards licensing psilocybin for clinical use and follow research showing that it appears to help the mental health of people previously dismissed as untreatable.
Compass Pathways, a mental health care company, announced yesterday that in a trial on 89 people there had been no adverse side-effects beyond the expected psychedelic ones. The study, run with King’s College London, involved people taking the drug with the oversight of therapists.
If future trials go well and prove its efficacy, the company said that it hoped to have the treatment on the market by 2025. Ekaterina Malievskaia, its chief innovation…