Canada's Nirvana Life Sciences Inc. recently acquired a license for a novel delivery system for its psychedelics-based therapies currently in development.

The company, which seeks to develop psychedelic therapeutic medicines including non-addictive chronic pain and relapse-prevention products, added this novel delivery system to its portfolio. The delivery system is destined for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with high bioavailability and rapid onset. 

The system, manufactured for the licensor Hai Beverages Inc., will be used as a formulating agent for both water-soluble and non-water-soluble APIs. Their onset, when taken orally, would be standard twenty to forty-five minutes, yet this method allows the compound to bypass first pass liver metabolism and directly enter the bloodstream with a rapid onset of 5 minutes or less. 

The growing interest in psychedelics-assisted therapy calls for innovative ways of efficiently delivering the APIs on various psychedelics. 

For instance, MDMA's timing usually brings anxiety to patients, so they would benefit from a system that shortens the time of onset. Or dissociative drugs like ketamine, if a dose could be rendered orally but effectively come on as if injected intramuscularly; the advancement could be revolutionary to the field.

As Nirvana's head of innovation and chief chemist, Robert August, said: "We are very excited to see what new and interesting formulations we can develop with this system in the therapeutic psychedelic sector." 

The company is working with Dr. Nabissi and the ITD Labs team on the mechanism's formulation. They will then move on to utilize their latest in vivo, in vitro and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics study data on psychedelics to continue expanding their portfolio of formulations for use in psychedelic therapeutic medicine.