The Food and Drug Administration said Friday it would grant expedited review to three psychiatric drugs being developed to treat mental health conditions, including depression, the latest sign of the Trump administration’s commitment to an experimental treatment approach.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last weekend directing the FDA and other federal agencies to speed up access to and loosen restrictions on psychedelics, a class of hallucinogenic drugs that remain illegal under federal law.
The FDA said it granted priority review vouchers to two companies studying psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — for difficult-to-treat forms of depression. A third company received a voucher for methylene, a drug related to MDMA, for post-traumatic stress disorder. The FDA did not name the companies in the press release announcing the vouchers.
The documents do not guarantee approval, but instead mean that regulators will aim to shorten their review schedule from months to weeks.
Recent actions by the mentally disabled show growing support for mind-altering substances among Trump supporters, including war veterans and supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr.
