Filament Health is an all-natural psychedelic discovery and extraction technology company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company’s mission is to get safe, natural psychedelics into patients’ hands as soon as possible. Filament has a world-leading natural psychedelics IP portfolio, and relies on an accomplished botanical extraction management team, novel purification methods, and in-house Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) capabilities. An ongoing cultivation and research program is underway to identify the best strains and genetics of different psychedelic therapeutics. At the same time, FDA clinical trials are using IP-protected natural psychedelic extracts. The company also has a Health Canada psilocybin Dealer’s License and has applied for an amendment to its license to use a wider variety of natural psychedelics, such as DMT, harmaline, and mescaline.
Over 130 active clinical trials are attempting to demonstrate the potential for psychedelics to provide a healthier and more effective alternative to traditional treatments for depression, anxiety, and addiction. 560 million people globally suffer from these three mental health conditions, and nearly $35 billion is spent annually to try and combat them. What makes Filament stand out from other psychedelic healthcare companies is its commitment to exclusively natural treatments. Very few experts have the experience to create processes to make extracts efficiently, and Filament houses a significant number of them.
If past trends related to natural psychedelic discovery and extraction are any indication of future results, Filament is well-positioned to shape the development of psychedelic healthcare. Psychedelics have been used safely for medical purposes for over a millennium. 40% of Western current pharmaceutical products come from plants, whilst 42% of new pharmaceutical compounds discovered between 1981 and 2019 have had natural origins. For example, the most widely used cancer treatment ever created, Taxol, is extracted from the yew tree. This alone accounts for 4% of the global revenue of botanical and plant-derived treatments. One of the benefits of natural substances is that they can be made available immediately without the side effects of harmful synthetic chemicals or residues.
As of June 9, 2021, Filament cultivated its twentieth variety psychedelic mushroom, which contained four times as much psilocybin as previous cultivars. This discovery alone led to the identification of eight additional psychoactive alkaloids. 75 other cultivars are also currently undergoing testing procedures. Since 2020, natural psilocybin has been legalized in Oregon and decriminalized in 8 U.S. cities, including Denver. Health Canada has also granted numerous compassionate use exemptions for the psychedelic mushroom. A recent study at Imperial College London also showed that psilocybin produced consistently positive results in treating depression. However, psychedelic therapeutics are by no means limited to psilocybin. There are hundreds of plants containing yet-to-be-discovered compounds, with naturally extracted compounds that provide a plethora of potential therapeutics. Many plants also exhibit potential to prove the “entourage effect” (which is not possible with synthetic compounds), whereby multiple compounds work together to achieve the desired effect, such as pain management.
The field of natural psychedelics is one of the least explored in modern medical science. Through its novel discovery, extraction, and purification processes, as well as its commitment to natural therapeutic solutions, Filament is in a position to shape the future of psychedelic healthcare.
