ASX Health Stocks: Emyria partners with Pax Centre to provide psychedelics therapy for PTSD sufferers

Emyria partners with PAX to provide safe MDMA-based psychedelics therapy for PTSD
MGC Pharma concludes that IL-32 mRNA plays an important role in tumour inflammation

Emyria collaborates with Pax on PTSD

Clinical stage biotech company Emyria (ASX: EMD) has announced a collaboration with The Pax Centre, Australia’s leading trauma-focused psychiatric services specialising in the treatment of complex trauma.

The collaboration aims to develop a scalable program to provide safe MDMA-assisted therapy in the community for patients with treatment resistant PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

Under the deal, PAX will provide specialist psychiatrists, trained therapists, and facilities; while Emyria will manage clinical trial design, Real-World Data generation, data monitoring and the supply of MDMA tablets.

The care program will commence as an ethics-approved clinical trial (with Emyria as sponsor), until PAX psychiatrists have obtained Authorised Prescriber status, and a cost model has been developed.

PTSD is a significant mental health issue in both the US and Australia.

In the US, approximately 10 million people suffer from PTSD while in Australia, there are approximately 1 million sufferers.

“As the burden of PTSD grows, the interest and demand for new treatment options increases amongst patients and specialists,” said Emyria CEO, Dr Michael Winlo.

The use of MDMA, also known as ecstasy and molly, has so far been limited to research settings due to the extensive preparations required.

In February, Emyria said it has secured sufficient clinical-grade MDMA to support MDMA-assisted therapy for over 70 patients after the TGA rescheduling of MDMA comes into effect on July 1.

Australia became the first country in the world to recognise psychedelics as medicine, after the TGA approved psychedelic substances used in magic mushrooms and MDMA in January.

MGC Pharma concludes pre-clinical study on CimetrA

MGC Pharma (ASX:MXC) meanwhile has completed an in-vitro pre-clinical study on CimetrA’s mechanism of action (MoA), which was carried out at the GLP-Certified Science in Action Lab in Israel.

The study demonstrated the inhibitory effect of CimetrA on the mRNA expression and, as a result, on the secretion of IL-32 proteins and the subsequent suppression of inflammation and inflammatory cytokines.

What this has proved is that the presence of the IL-32 mRNA protein plays a critical role in the secretion of the cytokines that cause tumour inflammation.

MXC has concluded that control of this protein is the fundamental pathway to manage and reduce inflammation.

CEO Roby Zomer said the results have advanced the company’s understanding of the biological mechanisms, and demonstrate CimetrA’s effective in the treatment of inflammatory diseases.

“The data from this study provides critical confirmation in the pathway to drug development, and means that we can further target the specific biological functions in our formulation,” Zomer said.