HHS commits up to $25M to ibogaine and rapid-acting psychotropic research
- ARPA-H will spend up to $4.9M over five years on ibogaine and other rapid-acting drugs for PTSD and serious mental illness, and further ibogaine awards for substance use disorders will fund regulatory and manufacturing groundwork.
- NIMH will open a $20M funding opportunity for a network studying ketamine, esketamine, psilocybin and other rapid-acting interventions.
- It follows an April executive order prioritizing psychedelics; DemeRx's noribogaine DMX-1001 is in first-in-human testing, and Compass and Usona have psilocybin filings at FDA.
💡 Points Based on public reports
The money is small next to a drug program, but it targets the unglamorous pieces, manufacturing and regulatory groundwork, that keep ibogaine from entering trials at all. The harder problem is safety: ibogaine's cardiotoxicity is why noribogaine-type analogs such as DemeRx's are the more likely commercial path. For sponsors the signal is policy tailwind, not a funded route to approval.
📰 Source · BioSpace ↗ HHS pumps up to $25M into ibogaine, other psychotropic drugs on Veteran’s Day