PT491 – Dr. Sam Banister – Drug Development, The State of Biotech, and Exploring Non-Hallucinogenic Compounds
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2024
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Christopher Koddermann interviews Dr. Sam Banister: co-founder and chief scientific officer of Psylo, an Australian biotech company developing next-generation psychedelics.
Banister discusses how he got involved in drug development, how Psylo came about, and the hallucinogenic and non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists Psylo is working on. He talks about the compromise between immediate need and ambition, and the ethical considerations and possibilities behind developing non-hallucinogenic compounds: What can we take from the psychedelic experience for people who aren't ideal candidates for one? Is the psychedelic experience truly necessary? And for what indications will these new Gen 3 compounds be most useful?
He discusses:
- What we can infer about the volatility of biotech and the state of the psychedelic industry based on recent mergers and acquisitions
- The long-term challenges of drug development and the scalability of treatment options
- How the initial success of Spravato has played a role in allaying fears around new compounds
- Head twitch response and concerns it's not as accurate of a metric as we've believed
- Australia's decision to down-schedule psilocybin and MDMA, and the speed of implementation and licensing: How long will it be before people have easy access?
- What he sees for the future and why we need to be careful with language around expectations
and more!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Psychedelics Today podcast. This is Chris Cauterman. |
| 0:15.6 | Today I'm speaking with Sam Bannister. Sam has a PhD in chemistry and is the co-founder and chief scientific officer |
| 0:22.2 | of Silo, an Australian biotech startup developing next generation psychedelic-inspired drug |
| 0:27.4 | candidates for the treatment of mental health. We cover a fair bit of ground in our conversation, |
| 0:33.3 | including Sam's background, the debate over the potential efficacy of Gen 1 versus Gen 2 and |
| 0:38.9 | Gen 3 psychedelics, ethical issues related to the use of non-halucinogenic psychedelic-inspired |
| 0:45.5 | drug candidates, the challenges of Gen 1 psychedelics in terms of cost and scaling up treatments |
| 0:51.0 | to serve a large number of patients and what various companies are |
| 0:54.5 | doing to address these challenges. |
| 0:56.8 | Big Farmers' lack of interest in psychedelics and silos partnership with Diachi Sanko has a rare |
| 1:02.0 | bright spot on that front. |
| 1:03.8 | Fundraising challenges in the psychedelics and biotech sector. |
| 1:07.4 | Australia's decision to down-schedule psilocybin and MDMA and related topics. |
| 1:12.7 | And now I bring you Sam Bannister. |
| 1:19.1 | Sam, welcome to the podcast. Good to see you again. Thanks for joining us today. |
| 1:23.9 | Yeah, great to see it, Chris. Thanks. Thanks so much for taking the time. |
| 1:27.4 | Sam, before we get into the specifics of silo and your particular focus and approach to drug development, |
| 1:34.9 | maybe you can just share a little bit in terms of your own background, your education, your professional experience, |
| 1:39.9 | and how it is you got interested in psychedelic medicine. |
| 1:44.6 | Yeah, yeah, sure, Chris. |
| 1:46.1 | So I'm a chemist by training, and I did my undergraduate studies in Australia, |
| 1:51.2 | and that's sort of where I, at the University of Sydney, |
... |
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