London-based Clerkenwell Health is a psychedelic-specialist clinical research organization that has recently received a seed funding round totaling £2.5 million. This brings their overall funding to £2.5 million and change.
The financing round was backed by Lionheart Ventures, Convergence Partners and Exceptional Ventures, which was co-founded by Paolo Pio and Matt Cooper. Both Pio and Cooper were involved in the creation of Capital One Bank in the US as well as Tandem Bank and Octopus Capital Group.
In May, the UK research organization gathered over $700k in pre-seed funding.
The announcement of funding comes with the news that Psyence, a Toronto-based life sciences company, received approval from the MHRA to begin testing at their London site.
In a clinical trial, researchers will look into the effectiveness and safety of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy versus conventional psychotherapy for the treatment of adjustment disorder resulting from being diagnosed with an incurable disease.
The ONS reports that individuals with terminal illnesses face a higher risk of committing suicide than the average citizen.
Clerkenwell Health has partnered with Mindset, a Mind American Pharmaceutical-backed biotechnology company. This corporation focuses on treatments for psychological and neurological disorders.
The company hopes future clinical trials will consider the potential of psychedelic medications to treat difficult mental disorders.
Clinical Research Organisation
Clerkenwell Health’s CEO is Tom McDonald. It’s a clinical research firm that supports clients in designing and implementing trials for psychedelic assisted therapy.
Large-scale psychedelic research is possible thanks to commercial research centers offering unique capabilities. These centers facilitate large-scale clinical trials, co-develop new drugs and Technologies and generate medical innovations.
These services provide companies with support for clinical trials: including trial design, management, site selection, regulatory compliance and expert advice.
Clerkenwell Health’s CEO Tom McDonald stated that the company received financial backing from substantial investors who have experience funding companies to grow. They also partnered with companies in North and Europe America. This led to the company being granted permission to conduct their first psychedelic therapy trial at their London facility. Clerkenwell’s momentum in the movement for psychedelics-assisted therapy is growing as a result.
Paolo Pio, the current General Partner of Exceptional Ventures, believes that mental health is the most important aspect of their mission. As Co-Founder, he notes that Exceptional Ventures’ primary goal is to help people live healthier, happier and longer lives. Data proves that mental illnesses are the most common cause of unhappiness in the world. Due to the nature of how mental disorders are treated, finding a way to treat these disorders with psychedelics is a difficult and regulated process. The Clerkenwell Health founders have significant experience in this field and believe they are the best positioned in Europe and the UK to make a huge difference on the larger scale of clinical trials. Their primary goal is to accelerate the acceptance of psychedelics as a treatment for mental disorders, which would tremendously benefit people worldwide.
Daniel Koppelkamm, the Senior Advisor at Convergence Partners, believes that combining plant medicine with psychotherapy will create a shift in mental health care. Koppelkamm says that this idea came from his work with patients and therapists at Clerkenwell. Their work led them to believe that psychedelic compounds could be brought to the market by creating structured clinical trials for these components.
