By late 2021, Numinus Bioscience plans to add 7,500 square feet to their state-of-the-art lab in Nanaimo BC in order to accelerate intellectual property development and to increase psychedelic supply capacity. Said Sharan Sidhu, Science Officer and General Manager for Numinus Bioscience, in a press release: “When complete, the facility will enhance our IP and partnerships strategy, generate more revenue through analytics testing for psychedelics and other contract services, and increase our supply of consistent, safe and effective psychedelics for clinical use and trials undertaken by academic, not-for-profit and for-profit entities.”
In the burgeoning psychedelics market, companies such as Numinus that position themselves as suppliers for research and eventual dissemination of medicine have an edge. Regardless of what eventual therapies are approved, the raw materials for the synthesization of therapeutic compounds will always be in demand. Numinus in particular seems focused on what can be done now to grow the market. At the time of writing, the Numinus website features twenty job listings not only in Nanaimo but across Canada, signaling that Numinus has more big plans for their future.
On the subject of now, Numinus is using its recently acquired Mindspace clinics in Montreal to administer Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), currently used to help with treatment-resistant depression. They are also offering two compassionate access clinical trials for mental health in Vancouver BC. The first, a collaboration with the non-profit psychedelics advocate the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), provides MDMA along with talk therapy to alleviate the effects of treatment-resistant PTSD.
“Training Numinus therapists in the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy protocol for PTSD will provide a meaningful expansion of access to the ongoing research program for this promising treatment,” said Amy Emerson, CEO of MAPS PBC in a press release dated December 2, 2020. “Though this treatment is still investigational, if approval is granted through the regulatory pathway this collaboration will bolster our shared goal of addressing the enormous — and growing — need for improved proven treatments for people suffering from PTSD.” The collaboration with MAPS is significant because the non-profit collaborates with promising companies to overcome the medical, legal, and cultural hurdles psychedelics continues to face.
In terms of the lab expansion, Numinus aims to take full advantage of the amendments to its Federal license “under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to allow the possession, production, assembly, sale, export and/or delivery of a variety of psychedelics including Ketamine, LSD, Mescaline, N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), N-Methyl-3,4, methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDMA), Psilocin and Psilocybin” as per their press release. Numinus will also invest $1.2 million in new equipment for the facility, including a state-of-the-art high-resolution spectrometry instrument for research into Psilocybe mushrooms. Spectrometers help spread information, such as electromagnetic radiation, into a spectrum to make it easier to analyze. An important aim for the lab will be to create “standardized test methods for a range of psychedelics.”
