CMPS - COMPASS Pathways Is Accelerating Patient Access To Evidence-Based Innovation In Mental Health Care
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By Faith Ashmore, Benzinga
The Current Landscape Of MentalHealth Is Failing Patients
Mental health treatments often fail many patients,leaving them struggling to find relief and support. Patients in thiscategory are often considered “treatment-resistant,” wheremultiple therapies have limited or no effectiveness. Many people withmental health conditions such as depression, anxiety or bipolardisorder encounter this frustrating reality. Despite their efforts toseek help, they are unable to find effective treatments that alleviatetheir symptoms and improve their quality of life.
This failure of mentalhealth treatments further exacerbates the marginalization experiencedby individuals with these conditions. As their condition persists orworsens, they may face stigmatization, discrimination and isolation.Often, this is because treatment is looking at a singular tool for aheterogeneous or multiple-cause disease state. For example, some drugson the market currently modulate serotonin, norepinephrine anddopamine transmission within the brain. For some patients, this helpsmaintain a healthy mental state – but for others, it not only failsto work but may cause undesirable side effects.
Geoff Grammer, Chief Medical Officer ofGreenbrook NeuroHealth Centers breaks down the current landscape,sharing, “If we think of depression, kind of like headache,there's a lot of things that cause headaches. If you came and sawme for a headache and I said, all I got is Tylenol, that's goingto leave you wanting. Take migraines, for example, [Tylenol is noteven a suitable drug to administer]. Often people need differentclasses of agents for that. So what we're beginning to see ispeople breaking away from that kind of very rigid [historical] modeland bringing more tools to the front to give patients more options totry to address some of those variations in what's causing thedisease.”
How Are Mental Health Treatments Evolving?
To address these issues,there is a pressing need for not only the development of bettertreatments but also improved access to them. It is crucial to ensurethat individuals with mental health conditions have readily availableand affordable access to a range of evidence-based therapies, such aspsychotherapy, medication and alternative interventions. Oneinvestigational therapy that has emerged in recent years is psilocybintreatment, particularly for illnesses like treatment-resistantdepression (TRD) or PTSD.
Steve Levine MD, Senior Vice President of Patient Access andMedical Affairs, COMPASS Pathways, shares, “We need as many tools inthe toolbox as possible because the demand is so great in psychiatry.And we're on the cusp of that, whether it's psychedelictreatments or other promising innovations that we will hopefully seeapprovals for in the coming years, as well as the infrastructurethat's being built to deliver them. In the coming decade, I hopewe will see increased access for patients in need of care and bettertools to meet those needs coming together to make a difference forthese patients.”
COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS) is working hard ondeveloping innovative treatments to better help patients with anurgent unmet need. Although further research is still needed toestablish its efficacy and safety, the company’s initial findingsare promising and they have progressed to a phase 3 program inTRD.
Thecompany’s innovative approach has received FDA Breakthrough Therapydesignation in the U.S. and Innovative Licensing and Access Pathwaydesignation in the UK for their investigational COMP360 psilocybin intreatment-resistant depression. Moreover, in late 2021, COMPASSPathways announced the completion of a randomized, controlleddouble-blind phase 2b study of investigational COMP360 psilocybintreatment involving 233 patients with TRD in 22 sites across Europeand North America.
As part of its goal to develop new and more effective treatmentoptions for TRD and other difficult-to-treat mental health conditions,COMPASS is researching and developing an integrated digital and AIproduct ecosystem to potentially improve the prediction of patientoutcomes, scale therapist training and gain a better understanding ofTRD as an illness. While the vision is to use these tools in tandemwith COMP360 psilocybin treatment if approved, they are being builtwith scalability and broad use in mind in order to help impact thetreatment of a wide range of mental health disorders.
Treatment-resistant patients are a high unmet need. There is aneed not only for innovative treatments but also for companiontechnologies and programs to support patients. It is also crucial forpsychedelic treatments to go through clinical trials to establishsafety and efficacy and through formal FDA approval so patients canget access to care in a regulated medical system. COMPASS Pathways,along with peers like BioRestorative Therapies (NASDAQ: BRTX),are innovators in a growing market.
Company BioCOMPASS Pathwaysplc (Nasdaq: CMPS) is a mental health care company dedicated toaccelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation in mentalhealth. Our focus is on improving the lives of those who are sufferingwith mental health challenges and who are not helped by currenttreatments. We are pioneering the development of a new model ofpsilocybin therapy, in which our proprietary formulation of syntheticpsilocybin, COMP360, is administered in conjunction with psychologicalsupport. COMP360 has been designated a Breakthrough Therapy by theU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has received InnovativeLicensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) designation in the UK fortreatment-resistant depression (TRD). We have commenced a phase 3clinical program of COMP 360 psilocybin therapy in TRD, the largestrandomised, controlled, double-blind psilocybin therapy clinicalprogram ever conducted. Previously, we completed a phase 2b study withtop line data showing a statistically significant (p<0.001) andclinically relevant improvement in depressive symptom severity afterthree weeks for patients who received a single high dose of COMP360psilocybin with psychological support. We are also conducting phase 2clinical studies of COMP360 psilocybin therapy for post-traumaticstress disorder (PTSD) and anorexia nervosa. COMPASS is headquarteredin London, UK, with offices in New York and San Francisco in theUnited States. Our vision is a world of mental wellbeing.
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Contact Details
StephenSchultz
stephen.schultz@compasspathways.com
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