#143: 🐸 A Fast-Acting Antidepressant With Only A 15-Minute Trip
Beckley Psytech's Breakthrough 5-MeO-DMT Nasal Spray Could Change Treatment-Resistant Depression Forever
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Nina
💬 In this note:
🐸 A Fast-Acting Antidepressant With Only a 15-Minute Trip
📚 Intermezzo
⚡️ A New HPV test
#143: 🐸 A Fast-Acting Antidepressant With Only a 15-Minute Trip
Beckley Psytech has developed a 5-MeO-DMT nasal spray which they are taking through human clinical trials for treatment resistant depression.
DMT is often called the “God molecule" because of its reputation for inducing intense, mystical experiences.
5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) is in the DMT family.
It is a potent psychedelic compound found in the secretion from the parotid glands of the Bufo alvarius toad, native to the Sonoran desert in Arizona.
Beckley Psytech is interested in 5-MeO-DMT for its rapid onset, short duration and impactful effects on mental health, particularly depression.
The study enrolled 193 patients with treatment-resistant depression across the U.S. and Europe to test their intranasal 5-MeO-DMT formulation called BPL-003.
These are people for whom traditional antidepressants haven't worked.
Treatment Resistant Depression
About 300 million people around the world have major depressive disorder (MDD).
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) refers to cases where at least two adequate antidepressant treatments have failed to bring significant relief.
Around 20–30% of individuals with MDD develop TRD.
That means, nearly one in five people with depression worldwide experience treatment-resistant depression.
Making TRD a significant public health concern.
How Doctors Evaluate Depression
To assess a patient’s depression, the patient is asked to complete the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS).
It’s a tool that doctors and therapists use to measure how depressed someone is.
There are 10 questions on the scale.
Each question asks about a different symptom of depression, like feeling sad, tired, or having trouble sleeping.
The person being tested is given a score from 0 to 6 for each question.
0 means the symptom is not a problem at all.
6 means the symptom is very bad.
The total score can be between 0 and 60.
Most people with treatment-resistant depression score above 20, and many are above 30, even while on medication.
People who are not experiencing depression have a score from 0 to 6.
Doctors will use the MADRS scores to decide if a new or different treatment is needed, like therapy, ketamine, TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), or other options - like experimental psychedelic treatments.
The Beckley Psytech study uses the MADRS scale to assess the effectiveness of their 5-MeO-DMT formulation and doses.
The 5-MeO-DMT Study Results
Patients received either a single high dose (12mg), mid-dose (8mg), or low dose (0.3mg) of the Beckley Psytech formulation in a nasal spray.
Psychological support was given before, during and after dosing.
Patients who received the 8mg dose saw an average 12.1 point reduction on the MADRS depression scale by day 29, compared to a reduction of just 5.8 points in the low-dose control group.
The antidepressant effect showed up by day 2 and was largely maintained through day 57.
For perspective, that's faster and more durable than Spravato (esketamine), which is currently a go-to rapid-acting depression treatment.
Furthermore, these results show that someone with severe depression (MADRAS 35-60) can improve to moderate depression (20-34), or from moderate depression to mild, with one dose.
What makes 5-MeO-DMT interesting is that it is fast-acting and has a very short duration, usually about 10-15 min of psychedelic experience.
In the study, most patients were ready for discharge just 90 minutes after dosing.
If this holds up in Phase 3 trials, we're talking about a treatment that could offer substantial depression relief with only a handful of clinic visits per year instead of dozens with current antidepressants.
The safety profile looked clean too.
No serious adverse events were related to taking the drug and importantly, there were no treatment-emergent suicidal thoughts or behaviors experienced in the therapeutic dose groups.
This puts Beckley in direct competition with GH Research, which reported similar positive results earlier this year with their own 5-MeO-DMT formulation.
Both companies are now racing toward Phase 3 trials and eventual regulatory approval.
It might sound surprising, but some psychedelic advocates are finding unexpected allies in Trump’s America
Health Secretary RFK Jr. is surprisingly pro-psychedelics, calling them a serious tool for mental health.
And Calley Means, a White House adviser says, psychedelics should be a national policy priority.
This is renewing hope for the field, which suffered a setback last year when the FDA rejected a Lykos Therapeutics’ application to use MDMA as part of a treatment protocol for post-traumatic stress disorder.
An Acquisition Announcement
The Beckley Psytech Phase 2b Clinical Trial results were announced on July 1, 2025 following an announcement from atai Life Sciences on June 2, 2025 that they plan to acquire Beckley Psytech following the successful results.
☕️ My Take
I find 5-MeO-DMT interesting because I lived in the Sonoran Desert, where the Bufo alvarius toad is native, for 5 years.
The experience is short and profound, in Nina’s Notes #21, I quote Dr. Chris Timmerman describing the 5-MeO-DMT experience from his research studies on the compound for addiction.
“What makes 5-MeO-DMT truly unique is its apparent ability to induce states of ego dissolution in such a reliable fashion. The structure of the experience is fundamentally altered compared to other psychedelics – which usually provide a very rich visual experience. With ‘5-MeO’, users apparently experience a ‘white light’ that is closely associated with the ego-death experience. It is that ego-death experience that appears to have a radical impact on the user, especially in the case of addiction.”
The short duration and reliability of the experience opens up an opportunity for psychedelic therapists to be trained on a standardized psychological support protocol too, which can match the experience and ideally maximize the benefits to the patient.
The ’radical impact’ of the psychedelic experience may mean that patients decrease their depression to a manageable level and may only need a single dose per year.
A big change for treatment-resistant depression patients when they usually need to check in with their doctor quarterly to monitor symptoms.
I’m rooting for these clinical trials, from Beckley Psytech and GH Research.
📚 Book of the Week
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Rating: ★★★★☆
This one took me a while to get into, luckily, it’s a longer book.
The way Rooney writes the string-of-consciousness for her characters was tough for me at first, but eventually it became easy to read.
This story is all about love. It was a refreshing take on all the different ways that it can come, in confusion, in age-gaps, in remarriages, and in multiple partnerships.
Rooney does a fantastic job showing the evolution of her characters - brothers initially judging each other’s views and fighting, to then changing their minds on topics they used to disagree on and resolving conflict in mature ways.
A quote that resonated with me was along the lines of “I am so deeply affected by what he says about me, but it doesn’t seem like what I say bothers him at all” and I feel like that has happened to us all.
We can take things said to us to heart and put on a tough face but, at the core of it, we are all affected by what family and loved ones say to us. We all want to love and be loved in return.
⚡️ Check This Out
Hong Kong startup WomenX Biotech has developed PadX, a HPV test that transforms cervical cancer screening from an invasive procedure into something as simple as using a menstrual pad.
Founded by Harvard-trained researcher Pui-Wah Choi, the device resembles a regular sanitary pad with a built-in testing strip that collects cervical cells from menstrual blood.
Women wear it for a few hours during their heaviest flow, then mail it to a lab for analysis.
In local studies, PadX showed accuracy comparable to traditional Pap smears and, since launching this year, WomenX has sold over 1,000 kits in Hong Kong.
The innovation addresses both medical and cultural barriers to cervical cancer screening, particularly in regions where there are religions which discourage women from showing their bodies even to clinicians.
Beyond HPV detection, Choi envisions menstrual blood as a diagnostic goldmine for conditions from endometriosis to menopause hormones.
Thus, positioning WomenX among innovative firms working to make healthcare more accessible for women globally.
🗣️ Looking for the Nina’s Notes Podcast?
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Edited by Wright Time Publishing
Fascinating as usual Nina!