As part of the world’s first clinical trial jointly conducted by Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology and Entropy Neurodynamics, all patients with Binge-Eating Disorder showed significant improvement following intravenous psilocin therapy. The disorder is a mental health condition characterized by episodes of uncontrollable overeating during which a person is unable to stop eating on their own.
After completing just two courses of treatment with the drug known by the code name TRP-8803, 50% of patients experienced no episodes of uncontrolled eating during the 84-day observation period. Among the six patients enrolled in the pilot study, all of whom had not responded to existing conventional treatments, binge-eating episodes decreased by 73%. In addition, anxiety scores decreased by 50%, depression by 42%, while patients’ quality of life improved by 61%.
Swinburne University Director of Clinical Trials and project lead Susan Rossell described the results observed over four weeks as highly positive.
“Changing the lives of these six patients is a huge achievement. These are people who had suffered from the disorder for 20 years and for whom previous treatments had failed. Before entering the study, they experienced an average of 2.3 episodes of uncontrolled eating per week,” Rossell said.
According to Rossell, the findings offer hope not only to the millions of people living with this particular disorder, but also to those for whom conventional psychiatric treatments have proven ineffective in other conditions.
Jason Carroll, CEO of Entropy Neurodynamics, emphasized the durability of the results and described the 12-week data as encouraging.
“The duration of the effect is critically important to us. We are not trying to create another medication that patients would have to take every day. We are investigating whether a limited number of precisely controlled psychedelic therapy sessions can provide clinical benefits that persist long after treatment has ended,” Carroll said.
The researchers noted that although the data are currently based on a small-scale study, the results fully support the clinical rationale for further development of TRP-8803.
Swinburne University and Entropy Neurodynamics are currently recruiting new participants for a second cohort to test a shorter intravenous administration regimen of TRP-8803 and further improve the treatment’s effectiveness.
