Canadian psychedelic companies HAVN Life Sciences and MINDCURE Health announced major manufacturing milestones on Tuesday, setting them up to increase the regulated supply chain of psilocybin and ibogaine, respectively, to patients and researchers around the world.
HAVN entered an agreement with P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer based in Kingston, Jamaica, that will facilitate the export of psilocybin from Jamaica to the United States, Canada, and Europe. The packaging of psilocybin through the facility will comply with both Health Canada and local guidelines.
The company said the agreement, along with its collaboration with Jamaican psychoactive mushroom producer Hypha Wellness, reinforce the company’s commitment to collaboration and the long-term growth of the psychedelic industry in Jamaica. The agreement also furthers the goal of building a regulated supply chain of psychedelics, and its pursuit of standardized extraction methods for psychedelic compounds to create active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that support brain health.
“This partnership is absolutely key for our ability to supply safe, quality-controlled psilocybin APIs to researchers and patients around the globe,” HAVN Life Sciences CEO Tim Moore said. “The agreement will make HAVN Life Sciences the first company in the Caribbean Community and Common Market with GMP capabilities for psilocybin – a huge step towards our goal to be at the forefront of the international psychedelic supply chain framework.”
“As a new industry, it is critical that there are stakeholder partnerships,” added Jamaican Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green. “The sustainability of the industry will depend largely on our ability to effectively research psilocybin mushrooms and to combine agriculture with manufacturing.”
Meanwhile, MINDCURE announced the launch of the second stage of its plan to manufacture pharmaceutical-grade synthetic ibogaine. This involves the psychedelic technology and research company assessing the quality of synthetic ibogaine when produced at scale to determine the timing and cost of commercial-scale manufacturing.
MINDCURE Health is currently pursuing two patent-pending routes for the chemical synthesis of ibogaine – a psychoactive substance that is naturally found in the roots of the African iboga tree. Each route may provide advantages including improved isomeric purity, increased chiral purity, and more easily isolated intermediate compounds, and both options are being assessed to determine which will be the preferred method for further development.
By producing synthetic ibogaine, the company hopes to create a medicinal supply of pharmaceutical-grade ibogaine to be used by the company’s research team to explore therapeutic potential, other researchers conducting clinical trials, and eventually, by clinicians providing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
“Researchers need access to a standardized, high-quality supply of ibogaine that ensures consistent dosing and reliable results. Our goal is to be the company that provides this supply,” said MINDCURE Health’s Chief Medical Officer Joel Raskin. CEO and President Kelsey Ramsden added: “We are currently working on proving the ability to scale up the production, and our next step will be to test the ibogaine to ensure it meets the highest standards of a pharmaceutical-grade product.”
