- Mydecine has announced its first psilocybin mushrooms harvest
- 20 kilograms will be exported from Jamaica to Canada
- Once extracted, refined, and turned into cGMP, the psilocybin will be available for various psychedelic clinical trials, including psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for veterans with PTSD
Denver-based life sciences company Mydecine has announced that its first commercial harvest of 20 kilograms of psilocybin mushrooms has been completed.
The company was the first to gain Current Good Manufacturing Practice capabilities to legally produce, sell, and export natural fungi psychedelic compounds back in August. A statement released on December 8 noted that psilocybin mushrooms will be exported from Mydecine’s research and cultivation facility in Jamaica to Canada.
According to the company’s statement, the harvest is being prepared for its Canadian cGMP Facility which has a Health Canada Schedule 1 Dealer’s Licence. Under the coverage of this licence, Mydecine can legally produce, transfer, sell, and export pharmaceutical psilocybin.
“We are pleased to announce the completion of our first commercial harvest of natural psilocybin mushrooms,” said Joshua Bartch, CEO and Chairman of Mydecine. “There is more research needed on these compounds in order to better understand the entourage effect experienced by patients which has shown dramatically effective results compared to single-molecule synthetic psilocybin in preliminary studies. As the industry grows, the need for naturally occurring psilocybin and access to large quantities of these molecules will be paramount and we are excited to be the first to advance this movement at scale.”
The psilocybin mushrooms will be extracted, refined and turned into a cGMP final product for controlled therapeutic purposes once they arrive in Canada. Since most clinical trials use chemically-synthesized psilocybin it can result in a very lengthy and expensive process. The Mydecine’s psilocybin is naturally acquired from whole-mushroom extraction which could be more cost-effective and less challenging for a larger production. According to Mydecine, naturally sourced psilocybin is more effective and can potentially have more beneficial effects due to its entourage effect, meaning that psilocybin is not working at a full speed and it is not producing more effective medicine when it is extracted on its own.
The final product will be available for purchase by other licensed institutions and companies conducting clinical trials into the benefits of psilocybin mushrooms as a treatment for various mental and physical health conditions, including anxiety, depression, addiction and PTSD. Portions of the harvest will also be used for Mydecine’s proprietary genetic, pharmacology, and clinical research. The clinical use will be for the studies and developing protocols of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD in veterans and other frontline workers.
