Clearmind Medicine reveals further positive pre-clinical results for cocaine addiction treatment

Clearmind Medicine (CSE: CMND) has achieved further positive pre-clinical results in its novel psychedelic molecule MEAI treatment for cocaine addiction.

MEAI is the company’s flagship therapeutic and has low toxicity, along with a strong safety profile and no side effects.

Through a recent study, results suggested MEAI can play a role in abolishing cocaine-induced conditioned place preference and eliminate cravings without being addictive itself.

The 5mg/kg dose was deemed most effective and chosen for further study.

Clearmind chief executive officer Dr Adi Zuloff-Shani said the latest results back up the team’s past findings on the potential of MEAI in treating cocaine addiction.

“As cocaine is extremely addictive and there is currently no dedicated treatment, I believe Clearmind is leading the way in this field,” he said.

“The results, even in this preliminary stage, also show the business impact as we need new and effective therapeutics, and these hold high commercial potential.”

Responsive sub-group found with decreased cravings

The pre-clinical trial was led by Professor Gal Yadid and the team from the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Centre and based on the conditioned place preference model.

In the trial, animals were catheterised and taught to self-administer cocaine.

Rats underwent an extinction phase where no cocaine was administered and MEAI was given to the test group.

After this, a relapse phase was executed, where the addicted rats were exposed to the drug with a single administration and then returned to the self-administration habitat, without receiving the drug.

It was believed the animal would press on the active pedal the more it yearned to receive the drug.

However, the results identified a sub-group, which included 60% of the animals, which dramatically responded to the treatment, decreasing cravings for cocaine, comparatively to the non-treated control group.

The latest results show similarities to the past Clearmind study which looked at the conditioned place-preference paradigm, where similar sub-population group was identified regarding cocaine preference, showing MEAI’s potential to treat cocaine addiction.

Clearmind currently holds a number of patents of the non-hallucinogenic compound MEAI.

Based in Vancouver, Clearmind is a biotech company which focuses on discovering and developing safe and novel psychedelic-derived therapeutics to treat alcohol use disorder and other pressing health challenges, including cocaine addiction.