Shares of Definium Therapeutics rose by double digits early Wednesday after the psychedelics developer announced that its main asset scored positive results in another late-stage clinical trial.
Definium has been trying to prove its pharmaceutical-grade form of LSD can improve mental health across a range of conditions. In June, the company disclosed that a single dose significantly reduced symptoms of major depression in an important study. The pill, codenamed DT120, also looked generally safe and fast-acting. Leerink Partners analyst Marc Goodman described the findings as “about as good as we could have hoped for,” and predicted sales could eventually reach $1.5 billion to $2 billion in major depression alone.
The drug has now succeeded again, this time in generalized anxiety disorder. Definium’s study used a well-established, 56-point scale that measures the emotional, cognitive and physical experiences of anxiety — things like worrying thoughts, difficulty sleeping, depression, fidgeting, muscle aches and nausea. The company said that, 12 weeks after a single dose of DT120, scores had declined by an average of 11.6 points.
That’s 5.4 points more than what researchers saw in the trial’s placebo arm. It’s also larger than the five-point separation Wall Street had anticipated, according to Jefferies analyst Andrew Tsai.
