Cybin Corp is a Canadian biotechnology company founded in 2019. Originally embracing both pharmaceutical and nutraceutical fungi-based products, Cybin is now solely focused on developing psilocybin– and tryptamine-based drugs for addiction disorders and mental illness. NetworkNewsWire coverage called Cybin Corp “one to watch” in July 2020, In September 2020, Doug Drysdale was appointed Cybin’s Chief Executive Officer. One month later, the company went public on the Toronto NEO Exchange.
On its website, Cybin describes its three-pronged mission as revolving around “utilizing proprietary drug discovery platforms, innovative drug delivery systems, novel formulation approaches and treatment regimens for psychiatric disorders.” The company aims to pioneer the commercialization of new administrations of psilocybin, including efficient, low-dose, dissolvable sublingual strips, as described by Psychedelic Science Review in a September 2020 article.
In February of 2020, Cybin partnered with the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science to execute clinical trials. In a press release announcing the partnership, former Cybin CEO Paul Glavine stated “While there is evidence to support psilocybin as a treatment for certain indications, the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science is taking a clinical approach to prove or disprove the safety and efficacy of psilocybin-based microdosing through an open science approach.” In May 2021, Cybin announced its Phase 2 studies to test the strips’ efficacy in treating Major Depressive Disorder were approved by the University of the West Indies Hospital ethics board. Speaking about the trials and Cybin’s intent to expand its IP portfolio to other “optimized” tryptamine substances, Drysdale told Forbes contributor Will Yakowicz that one of Cybin’s goals is to “shorten the overall duration of these treatments.”
Cybin announced in June 2021 that it would co-sponsor a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with psilocybin for frontline clinicians experiencing COVID-related distress.” In a press release announcing the study, which will be done in collaboration with Dr. Anthony Back at the University of Washington, Drysdale stated, “For more than a year now, frontline clinicians and healthcare professionals have made immeasurable sacrifices to protect public health in their communities. We consider it an honor and our duty to now help support their own healing processes, post-COVID-19. We are also delighted and proud to launch EMBARK, a ground-breaking psychotherapy model aimed at delivering best-practice, supportive healing in conjunction with psychedelic therapeutics.”
Cybin also partners with neurotechnology company Kernel, whose “non-invasive brain interface” flow technology uses time-domain near-infrared spectroscopy to map brain activity. Flow will be employed “to measure where psychedelics work in the brain in real-time” during trial participants’ psychedelic experiences and help Cybin determine “how we ultimately design our future therapeutics,” in Drysdale’s words.