Early studies indicate that the psychedelic compound mescaline has powerful potential as a therapeutic agent for major mental health indications, including addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.
With a history of close to 6,000 years of safe medical and spiritual use by Indigenous people in the Americas, mescaline is distinct from other psychedelic compounds.
Toronto-based biotechnology company Neural Therapeutics Inc. has been able to secure a rare permit from the Peruvian government to harvest and study the mescaline-producing San Pedro cactus to better understand its potential medicinal applications.
Neural has chosen to specifically work with San Pedro as its plant-based source of mescaline, instead of synthetic ones.
“Those who chose to work only with synthetics are going to miss out on a lot,” Neural CEO Ian Campbell told Proactive.
“It’s not that there's anything wrong with the synthetic approach, but our science team believes that there are compounds in the San Pedro cactus besides mescaline that have therapeutic benefits themselves or that can strengthen the therapeutic outcome of the mescaline, the so-called entourage effect.”
“By focusing on synthetic forms of mescaline, you’re more or less throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We intend to research these broader benefits and believe that, in addition to mescaline-based pharmaceuticals, there is potential for nutraceutical wellness products from non-psychotropic compounds found in the San Pedro cactus.”
DNA profiling of the San Pedro cactus
Neural is progressing toward the commencement of its clinical trials for the development of new mescaline-based therapies.
It announced in late July that it had been awarded a permit from the Servicio Nacional Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre, the National Service for Forest and Wildlife which is part of Peru’s Ministry of Agriculture, to harvest and study the San Pedro cactus.
Due to the nature of Neural’s application, the permit was also approved by the Ministry for the Environment.
“Our research will also play an important role in the preservation efforts around the San Pedro cactus, which is one of the reasons we were granted this rare permit,” Campbell said.
He said that there was a great lack of knowledge about the San Pedro cactus that Neural is complementing, such as how mescaline is actually made in the plant and the optimal parameters for growth.
“Mapping the genome will be a crucial step as it enables the accurate identification of source materials, which will provide greater safety throughout the drug development value chain,” he said.
“It also enables scientists to monitor species-specific growth rates thereby enhancing the species' longevity.”
The genetic work is a precursor for the company’s clinical activities, for which Neural expects to announce its target indications by the end of the calendar year.
“There are many major indications that we believe mescaline will be efficacious for,” Campbell told Proactive.
“We are now analyzing which of these indications has the greatest potential, both from a medical and from a financial perspective.”
The pharmaceutical market for mescaline-based treatments is in excess of $70 billion for indications including substance abuse, depression anxiety, eating disorders, and PTSD
Additionally, with its understanding of the non-psychedelic compounds found in the San Pedro cactus and their benefits, Neural could potentially tap into the $190 billion-plus nutraceutical market with dietary supplements, dietary fibre, weight loss supplements, and diabetic foods.
Commitment to cultural respect
Neural is dedicated to being a responsible steward of the San Pedro cactus, which has been used medicinally by Indigenous groups in South America for thousands of years.
It has engaged with shamans in Peru to ensure the company’s approach is aligned with their cultural values.
“If you want to look for a sea monster, you talk to the local fisherman. If you want to learn something about a plant, you talk to the local farmers or the local people,” Campbell said.
“There is strong support from the indigenous communities for efforts such as ours as these have the potential to create major benefits for these communities, such as ecosystem preservation and economic opportunities.”
Additionally, Campbell said Neural intends to set up a scholarship to support the families of shamans and others who want to further their education as a gesture of thanks to these communities for sharing their wisdom around the San Pedro cactus.
Sustainable mescaline research
Sustainability and preservation of the San Pedro cactus are also at the core of Neural’s initiatives.
“When we do our harvesting, we’re going to be replanting to ensure we have a greater density of plants than we had when we arrived,” Campbell said.
The CEO added that the company had never considered working with another mescaline-containing cactus, commonly known as peyote, found in Mexico and southwestern Texas that has a long history of use in religious ceremonies by the North American Church. The plant has been overharvested resulting in it having become endangered and nearing extinction.
Unlike peyote, the San Pedro cactus has a faster life cycle, reaching maturity in three to five years against Peyote’s 15 to even 30 years.
It has a slightly lower mescaline concentration when compared to peyote. However, peyote is a small button cactus that fits in the palm of a hand while the San Pedro grows to the size of a small tree meaning it has much greater mass, providing significantly more mescaline overall in a shorter period of time.
“The biomass you can obtain from an average mature San Pedro cactus could be anywhere between 80 kilograms and 100 kilograms,” Campbell said.
The San Pedro cactus is already quite commercial with products derived from the plant prevalent on shelves in Peru and other South American countries, he added.
“It doesn’t have quite the same cultural meaning because it’s something that’s already readily being exploited and permitted for commercial use in a number of South American countries,” Campbell said.
“That stems from the fact that San Pedro grows quite readily throughout South America. Local shamans are quite used to just walking off into the jungle and cutting their own San Pedro and producing their own realm medicines, while locals often legally sell it to tourists and to others in their communities.”
Once Neural has finished its genetic sequencing research, which Campbell noted was nearing completion, the company intends to publish its results and donate genetic samples to aid with preservation efforts.
While the company intends to file patents for its extraction and downstream processing methods and novel production formulations, it does not intend to file for natural plant-genetic-based patents.
“By publishing these DNA markers, we will ensure people understand our aim is preservation,” Campbell said.
“This approach is yielding benefits for the company as it was a major factor in obtaining this important licence, while it also signals to our local and indigenous partners that we are not just there to make money: our efforts will support the ecosystem and these communities.”
CSE listing in the works
Looking ahead, as Neural’s research progresses, the company is working towards becoming a publicly traded company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE).
Investors can also expect news about new partnerships that it is currently working on behind the scenes, the expansion of its research team internationally, and other announcements that will lead the company into clinical trials.
Campbell is positive about the company’s trajectory amid the broader “psychedelic renaissance” of recent years, with the mescaline-like synthetic psychedelic MDMA on track for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval as a therapy for PTSD in 2024.
“We are also seeing valuations increasing for companies engaged in critical fundamental drug development research, such as we will be doing,” he said.
With the World Health Organization projecting mental health issues to cost society around $6 trillion by 2030, it is clear that a new approach to mental health treatment is needed -- which could create a very significant economic opportunity for companies such as Neural, Campbell pointed out.
“Psychedelics such as mescaline are the front runners to bring about a paradigm shift in the treatment of mental health issues, creating not only a potential new lease on life for many people suffering from these debilitating indications, but at the same time reducing the cost to society."
Contact the author at emily.jarvie@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter @emilyjjarvie