British clinical psychedelics start-up closes £2.1m seed funding round as first trial in London gets green light
British start-up Clerkenwell Health raises £2.1m in investment for Europe’s first commercial facility dedicated to psychedelics-assisted therapies
First trial at London facility, which will use psilocybin-assisted therapy to support terminal cancer patients through their end-of-life care, has received MHRA approval
The company is supporting North American drug developers entering the UK with the goal of making the UK a leader in psychedelics research and innovation, with an eye to global expansion
London, October 2022: Clerkenwell Health, a psychedelic-specialist clinical research organisation, announced today it has raised £2.1m in seed funding to support the operations of its clinical trials facility - Europe’s first commercial facility dedicated to psychedelic assisted therapies, opening this Autumn.
It comes alongside the news that Toronto-based life sciences company Psyence has received approval from the MHRA to kick off the first trials at Clerkenwell’s London site. The clinical trial will assess the efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy versus psychotherapy alone for the treatment of adjustment disorder due to an incurable cancer diagnosis. With statistics from the ONS suggesting the suicide risk for terminally ill people is twice that of the general population, the results of this trial could feed into evidence on how best to support those who are terminally ill, to ease suffering and ensure people maintain their dignity.
The investment brings the total to date raised by Clerkenwell Health up to £2.5m, and will be used to get the London site fully operational. Investors include Lionheart Ventures, Convergence Partners, and Exceptional Ventures, which was co-founded by Paolo Pio (former MD Europe at Joyance Partners and co-founder of fitness bootcamp Urban Tribe) and Matt Cooper (who was part of the founding team at Capital One Bank in the US, co-founder of Tandem Bank and Chairman of Octopus Capital Group). Having amassed support from a team of serious investors and former bankers with experience in supporting companies to scale up, Clerkenwell Health is signalling their ambition to grow.
Clerkenwell Health is also working with North American drug discovery and biotechnology companies, notable the Otsuka Pharmaceutical backed Mindset, which focuses on treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders. The company hopes future trials will focus on the potential for psychedelic drugs to tackle a range of complex mental health conditions.
There has been a 21% rise in the number of people in contact with mental health services since 2016, one in ten consultant psychiatric posts in the NHS is currently vacant, and over 1.5 million UK adults are stuck on a waiting list for mental health support. While most research related to psychedelics has so far happened in universities and hospitals, or been carried out independently by drug developers, Clerkenwell Health is Europe’s first dedicated psychedelics clinical research organisation - working with a range of developers and committed to trialling drugs in combination with talking therapy, in a pioneering move for the industry.
Tom McDonald, CEO of Clerkenwell Health, said:
“The status quo for mental health treatment simply isn’t working and psychedelics-assisted therapy has the potential to be a game-changer. The UK is extremely well-placed to become the leader in psychedelics research and trials thanks to its globally competitive framework for clinical trials, which is why we chose to launch our operations in London.
“This seed funding and support from major investors who have serious experience in supporting companies to scale, our partnerships with companies in Europe and North America, and getting the green light for the first trial at our London facility, shows that Clerkenwell Health is well and truly open for business. Momentum for psychedelics-assisted therapy is building and we’re excited to be at the forefront of that charge.”
Paolo Pio, Co-Founder and General Partner of Exceptional Ventures, said:
“Our mission at Exceptional Ventures is to help people live healthier, happier, longer lives. Data demonstrates that mental health problems are the number one reason for unhappiness, and therefore tackling this issue is top of mind for us. Psychedelics show great promise in treating mental disorders, but it is a complex and highly regulated field. Clerkenwell Health founders bring together years of experience in this area, and we believe they are the best positioned in the UK and Europe to make a systemic difference in the development at scale of psychedelics clinical trials, with the ambition of accelerating their adoption, hugely benefiting mental health patients globally.”
Daniel Koppelkamm at Convergence Partners, said:
“Plant medicine coupled with patient-empowering psychotherapy will lead to a paradigm shift in mental healthcare over the next years. We believe that Clerkenwell will be a key enabler in bringing psychedelic compounds to the market by effectively structuring their highly complex clinical trials.”