Psychedelic drug DMT to undergo first clinical trial to treat depression

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The trial will be run by the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in collaboration with a neuropharmaceutical company called Small Pharma, who described the approval as a “truly ground-breaking moment” in the treatment of depression. “Psychedelic assisted therapy will revolutionise the treatment of depression because it gets right to the root cause of the illness,” Carol Routledge, chief medical and scientific officer at Small Pharma told The Independent. Dr Routledge described the regulatory approval as “a truly ground-breaking moment in the race to effectively and safely treat depression, as more and more people suffer as a result of the pandemic”. “By adopting responsible evidence-based research and development into psychedelic medicine, we hope to help rebrand these once stigmatised compounds as highly effective medical therapies which can be integrated into current healthcare systems and made accessible to the millions of people suffering from depression,” Mr Rands said in a statement.