Although the psychedelic medicine industry faced a significant setback in late 2024 when the FDA rejected a front-running MDMA-based treatment, healthcare hasn’t given up on psychedelics yet.
In fact, AbbVie, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the US, announced in August plans to drop more than $1 billion to acquire a psychedelic drug in development from Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals.
With states continuing to introduce and pass legislation to study or legalize psychedelics, Healthcare Brew asked leaders from across the industry their thoughts on psychedelic medicines, how they’re being integrated into the healthcare system, and what work still needs to be done.
Hospitals
Rachel Yehuda, endowed professor of psychiatry and neuroscience of trauma at Mount Sinai in New York, told us the healthcare industry is “in a transitional moment with psychedelic medicine.”
“We’re seeing growing interest from traditional institutions, including academic medical centers, government agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and National Institutes of Health, and pharma,” Yehuda said.
However, it’s still early days, as it’s hard to conduct clinical trials for psychedelic medicines and there are still “too few,” she added.
Mount Sinai in 2021 opened a psychedelic research center, renamed the Parsons Research Center for Psychedelic Healing in 2024, because the hospital believes it’s “essential to bring scientific rigor, clinical safety, and ethical clarity to this emerging field,” Yehuda said.
In order to safely integrate psychedelics into healthcare, key priorities should be making sure clinicians are trained properly, ensuring historically underserved communities have access to the treatments, and conducting ongoing research, she added.
Jerry Rosenbaum, psychiatrist-in-chief emeritus as well as founder and director of Mass General Brigham’s Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics in Boston, told Healthcare Brew that while there’s uncertainty around the logistics of how psychedelic medicines may be delivered and reimbursed, he thinks it’s very likely several will eventually work their way through FDA approval.
That’s because some research suggests psychedelics are effective in treating or reversing many psychiatric conditions without the need for daily medication and are also often effective for patients who haven’t responded to existing treatments, according to Rosenbaum.
Psychedelics are most poised to treat psychiatric conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance use disorders, he said.
Lykos Therapeutics’s Phase 3 study on MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, for example, found 71% of 104 patients no longer had symptoms meeting PTSD criteria after treatment. And a Phase 2 study from psychedelic medicine company Usona Institute found psilocybin treatment was associated with a “significant sustained reduction” in depression symptoms.
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Mass General Brigham founded the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics in 2021 to “understand how psychedelic molecules act to change the brain in hopes of deepening our understanding of psychiatric conditions and to facilitate the discovery of novel therapies,” Rosenbaum added.
Pharmacy
Andrew Whitman, a clinical pharmacist in hematology and oncology at UVA Health in Charlottesville, Virginia, told Healthcare Brew psychedelics have the potential to be particularly impactful for cancer patients.
“A lot of patients are dealing with the distress from cancer diagnosis and existing depression [or] anxiety. There’s a trauma response associated with the cancer diagnosis,” he said.
In his experience, providers in the oncology space are generally open to exploring psychedelic medicines since they work with such a vulnerable patient population, Whitman said.
A 2016 study from Johns Hopkins found psilocybin therapy helped combat depression and end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients.
A potential benefit psychedelics could have is to allow providers to deprescribe other medications and be more minimalistic when it comes to prescribing, Whitman said. That way, patients don’t have to take medication every day.
“You’re really putting the work into working through the underlying cause…so it shifts that focus from daily use to a more holistic approach to making sure patients are being taken care of,” Whitman said.
However, psychedelics don’t work for everybody. There’s concern for people with conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia because psychedelics may potentially exacerbate their condition, Whitman added.
Health tech
Leonardo Vando, medical director for Mindbloom, a telehealth company that provides ketamine therapy, told Healthcare Brew that while stigma around psychedelics still exists, he’s starting to see the healthcare system embrace the treatments.
“Academic medical centers are leading clinical trials, and health systems are increasingly exploring what it could look like to integrate psychedelic care responsibly. Even insurers are beginning to pay closer attention,” he said. “We’re still in the early stages, but momentum is building.”
The three areas of focus to bring psychedelics more into the mainstream are research, access, and education, Vando said.
The industry needs to continue conducting rigorous research on psychedelics, as well as make sure the medicines are “affordable, scalable, and available to people from all walks of life, not just those with privilege or proximity to major research institutions,” he said.
And education is needed to combat misconceptions that psychedelic medicines are experimental or risky, Vando added.
“If we can deliver these treatments with compassion, structure, and integrity, they won’t just join the mainstream; they’ll help reshape it,” he said.