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The St Vincent’s Melbourne Psilocybin-Palliative Care Trial

Friday, 31st January 2020, was a momentous day in the history of psychedelic research in Australia, as the clinical team of St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne’s landmark trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for anxiety and depression associated with terminal illness treated their first participant in their first drug-therapy session. That day marked just over two years after the first planning meeting between Dr Marg Ross of St V’s and Dr Martin Williams of PRISM, and almost ten years after PRISM’s first efforts to initiate psychedelic medical research in Australia.

The design of the St Vincent’s palliative care trial draws on the many years of psychedelic medical research experience accumulated worldwide and also reflects the particular skills of the St V’s clinical team in various modes of psychotherapy, music therapy, and beyond.

In her talk, Dr Marg Ross will relate the recent history of psychedelic medical research, describe the current study, including several innovative features of the St Vincent’s trial, and discuss the path ahead as we negotiate various regulatory hurdles and contemplate the longer-term potential of psychedelic psychotherapy as a viable treatment for a range of mental health conditions.

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Dr Margaret Ross is a consultant clinical psychologist and the clinical lead in Australia’s first ever psychedelic clinical trial. The trial will be based at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne and will investigate the ability of psilocybin-assisted therapy to alleviate anxiety and depression in terminally ill patients.

The St Vincent’s clinical trial will see palliative care patients given one to two doses of psilocybin and psychotherapy in a treatment protocol shown in overseas trials to produce rapid and dramatic improvements in depression and anxiety, and provide an altered outlook on their situation approaching death. Alongside psychotherapy and guidance, the psychedelic medicines are hoped to give terminally ill patients a new perspective on their lives, and to reduce the fear and depression which can often take over their final months.

Margaret will talk about the study's progress, its history, aims, and practical workings, whilst addressing the rationale for how psilocybin works to alleviate anxiety and depression.

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Martin Williams PhD is currently a Research Fellow in Computational Neuroscience at the Turner Institute of Brain and Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Monash University, Melbourne. Previously, he was a Research Fellow in Medicinal Chemistry at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University. 

Martin was founding President and is currently Executive Director of the health-promotion charity, Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine (PRISM, established 2011), and founding and current Vice-President of the botanical/education charity, Entheogenesis Australis (EGA, established 2004). 

Through PRISM, Martin and colleagues have been advocating since 2011 for mental health research using psychedelic compounds in Australia, and in doing so, have established global connections with leading researchers in the field. He has contributed to the planning and approvals process for several Australian clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and is currently an investigator on several studies of psilocybin, MDMA, and other psychedelics. 

Martin has been an articulate advocate for psychedelic medical research and the evidence-based clinical translation of psychedelic-assisted therapies for almost twenty years. He has co-authored several academic papers providing an Australian perspective on the subject, presents regularly at conferences and symposia, and is a frequent commentator on psychedelic research and governance in Australian print and broadcast media.

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