Incannex Healthcare Limited (ASX: IHL) has engaged Catalent to develop and manufacture a cGMP-grade psilocybin drug product for: (1) use in Incannex’s proprietary psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy drug development programme and (2), potential wider commercial use.
Commencing development and manufacture of a psilocybin drug product follows an internal analysis of the interim data from the PsiGAD phase 2 clinical trial, giving Incannex confidence to proceed with formulation development and cGMP manufacture of its own psilocybin.
Interim results from the PsiGAD trial remain internally confidential to maintain blinding and integrity of the trial, however, a report from the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) on the interim results will be released soon, when available.
Incannex CEO and Managing Director, Joel Latham, said having its own source of pharmaceutical grade psilocybin not only allows the company to freely undertake clinical trials, it also creates and assists with number of commercial opportunities which are currently at an advanced stage of investigation by the company, and will be announced in the coming weeks, following board appraisal and approval.
Catalent has been engaged to develop the formulation, generate required quality and stability data for regulatory filings, and establish cGMP manufacture of a drug product to be used in future clinical trials. The proposed manufacturing process will be designed so that it will be scalable to commercial supply levels when appropriate.
“Engaging Catalent for development and cGMP manufacture of Incannex’s psilocybin drug project is an important milestone for the PsiGAD programme,” Incannex Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Mark Bleackley, said.
“The resulting drug product, and supporting data, will form an important component of future regulatory filings and will facilitate Incannex’s development of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
“This therapy has the potential to help millions of people whose lives are seriously impacted by severe anxiety and for whom current treatment options have not been effective. We look forward to working with Catalent on the continued development of this exciting drug product.”
Incannex is a pharmaceutical company developing proprietary medicinal cannabinoid products and psychedelic medicine therapies for unmet medical needs.