A recent boom in psychedelic research has given way to a bumper crop of startups seeking to harness the potential of mind-altering drugs for treating depression, addiction and other conditions.
In this crowded field, Vancouver-based Filament Health has a unique approach: extracting drugs like psilocybin and mescaline from natural sources, including mushrooms and cacti, rather than synthesizing the ingredients in a laboratory.
Filament is studying its mushroom-based psilocybin as a treatment for opioid and stimulant use disorder. And more than a dozen other companies and academic centers are using the company’s drugs in trials of depression, chronic pain and other disorders.
Filament Health is studying its mushroom-based psilocybin as a treatment for opioid and stimulant use disorder.
Filament CEO Benjamin Lightburn spoke about the ethical, therapeutic and medical case for using naturally derived psychedelics. The answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What do you mean by “natural psychedelics” and how are they produced?
A: It means we’re deriving them from natural sources, like plants and fungi, because that is in fact the way that humanity has been interacting with these substances in their natural form for thousands of years. It’s only recently that we had access to synthetic chemical manufacturing techniques.
Since our products come from natural sources, we believe it allows people to maintain a certain connection to how humans have been ingesting these substances for years and years and to important aspects of many traditional communities.
A natural product contains much more than just one single active compound, right? And so in the case of magic mushrooms, for instance, they contain much more than just psilocybin. They contain other compounds like psilocin and a dozen or more other active ingredients.
Just like when you drink a cup of coffee there is much more than just caffeine. There’s a whole entourage of different compounds, which in the case of coffee gives it a flavor, aroma and terroir.
Q: Do you think patients will be able to tell the difference when they take these drugs?
A: It’s our hypothesis that the presence of these other compounds may contribute to differences or perhaps even improvements in the therapeutic potential of these complex natural mixtures. After all, these substances did evolve in nature alongside humans.
Q: Your company also prioritizes ethically and sustainably harvesting these plants. How does that work?
A: The iboga plant, which contains the psychedelic ibogaine, is probably the best example of that at Filament. We’ve been working with groups in West Africa, in Gabon, where the iboga plant is indigenous and, in fact, is also involved with important cultural practices by the Bwiti people.
So it’s very important for us to make sure that any source of supply that’s being imported from overseas, it’s being done sustainably, No. 1, of course. And No. 2, that the proper procedures for informed consent with the local indigenous community are put in place and procedures for reciprocity and equitable benefit sharing.
We obviously believe in sharing the benefit of any commercial products that get manufactured back with the local community who, after all, have been stewarding and shepherding this cultural resource for the previous millennia.
Q: What is the advantage of all of these practices when there are so many competitors in the psychedelic space?
A: We’re really the only one that is focused 100% on natural. And we’ve actually been able to successfully manufacture these products and get them into clinical trials.
There is a ton of interest from different researchers all around the world to use our psychedelic drugs. And there’s a lot of interest, I think, from the investment community to fund our own internal drug development.
If you believe psychedelics are a thing that’s going to be here to stay and you believe that people are going to at least want a choice to have a natural psychedelic product, then I think it’s fair to say that Filament is going to be sticking around for the long haul.
Photos: Psychedelic churches push boundaries of religion
Lorenzo Gonzales, center, and other retreat participants reach their hands to the sky during a breathwork ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. The session was a part of a three-night ayahuasca ceremony hosted by Hummingbird Church. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
The moon shines over a large tent housing about two dozen individuals partaking in an ayahuasca ceremony, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. Hummingbird Church, which hosted the weekend ayahuasca retreat, is part of a growing global trend in which people are turning to ayahuasca to treat an array of health problems after conventional medications and therapy failed them. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
An empty pitcher and shot sized cups sit on an altar during an ayahuasca ceremony hosted by Hummingbird Church in Hildale, Utah, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that contains an Amazon shrub with the active ingredient, DMT, and a vine containing monoamine oxidase inhibitors that prevents the drug from breaking down in the body causing visions lasting several hours. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Talia Gross, a retreat participant, plays a sound bowl while waiting for the ayahuasca ceremony to begin at a Hummingbird Church retreat in Hildale, Utah, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Hummingbird Church hosts an ayahuasca retreat in the small town of Hildale, Utah, just south of Zion National Park, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. The town was previously known as the stronghold for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist offshoot of the Mormon church. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Diwaldo and Mileidys Salado hold hands during a breathwork session at Hummingbird Church's ayahuasca retreat in Hildale, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Some sobbed uncontrollably during the session, which included rhythmic exhaling and inhaling set to a feel-good soundtrack that included "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban. They finished with a group scream. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Michael Vasconez, a facilitator with Hummingbird Church, blows a sacred tobacco snuff used by shaman in Brazil and Peru into his nose, while leading an integration circle on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. Following each of the three ayahuasca ceremonies, Hummingbird Church asks their participants to partake in integration, or a group reflection and discussion, to help interpret messages they received from the ayahuasca. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Maeleene Jessop, a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist offshoot of the Mormon church, second from left, talks with her fellow participants before the third and final ayahuasca ceremony during a retreat hosted by the Hummingbird Church, in Hildale, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Hummingbird is part of a growing global trend in which people are turning to ayahuasca to treat an array of health problems after conventional medications and therapy failed them. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski).
Colombian shaman Taita Pedro Davila, leads an ayahuasca ceremony with Hummingbird Church, in Hildale, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Following the traditions of his grandfather in Colombia, Davila prays, chants, and sings in Spanish and the language of the Kamëntsá people over the psychoactive brew before serving it to individual participants. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Diwaldo Salado, a retreat participant, sits on an air mattress during a breathwork session before the beginning of a Hummingbird Church ayahuasca ceremony, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. A rising demand for ayahuasca has spurred the formation of hundreds of groups like Hummingbird across the U.S. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Talia Goss, a retreat participant, shows a drawing of a vision she had during an ayahuasca ceremony in Hildale, Utah, hosted by the Hummingbird Church on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
A Hummingbird Church retreat participant lays in a hammock while an integration circle takes place on the grass behind him, discussing the previous night's ayahuasca ceremony, in Hildale, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Maeleene Jessop lies face down on the grass during an integration circle at an ayahuasca retreat in Hildale, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Following each of the three ayahuasca ceremonies, Hummingbird Church asks their participants to partake in integration, or a group reflection and discussion, to help interpret messages they received from the ayahuasca. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Lorenzo Gonzales, center, cries as he shares parts of his ayahuasca experience during an integration circle on the third day of a Hummingbird Church retreat, in Hildale, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Gonzales and his wife decided to try ayahuasca in hopes that it would help cure his physical and mental ailments. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Participants lay face down on the grass during an integration circle at an ayahuasca retreat in Hildale, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Following each of the three ayahuasca ceremonies, Hummingbird Church asks their participants to partake in integration, or a group reflection and discussion, to help interpret messages they received from the ayahuasca. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
The Hummingbird Church hosts an ayahuasca ceremony next to a cemetery where infants of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist offshoot of the Mormon church, were buried, in Hildale, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. A handful of former FLDS members attended the ceremony to help heal and understand past trauma. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Eloy Delgadillo, musician and facilitator for Hummingbird Church, practices songs for an upcoming ayahuasca ceremony, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
A statue of Mother Earth sits at the front of an altar used by a Colombian shaman, healer and traditional medicine man who leads the Hummingbird Church ayahuasca ceremonies, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, in Hildale, Utah. Like many groups using psychedelics as sacraments, Hummingbird functioned underground for many years, hosting word of mouth ceremonies. But in Feb. 2021, they decided to go public. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
