A Burnaby-based lab has been granted a Health Canada licence for psilocybin — better known as magic mushrooms — and other psychoactive controlled substances.
Albert Labs has been granted permission for legal possession, production, assembly, sale and delivery of the substance.
Albert Labs International Corporation is a research and drug development company that uses advanced culture technologies to create pharmaceutical-quality medicines for mental health treatments.
The Health Canada license, dated May 5, 2022, is for the Albert Lab's research and production facility in Burnaby.
"This is an important milestone for Albert Labs; it firms up our supply chain and provides us with more market opportunities," CEO Dr. Michael Raymont said in a news release.
"We have spent significant effort to develop our production technology, allowing us to cultivate and process the most consistent natural pharmaceutical psilocybin products in the industry. With this license, we now have the flexibility to produce and supply precursor APIs to our own operations in Europe and to explore sales to other customers in Canada and elsewhere."
Health Canada says magic mushrooms contain hallucinogens, usually psilocybin and psilocin and may cause someone to see, hear or feel things that are not there. They could also experience anxiety, fear, nausea and muscle twitches as well as increased heart rate and blood pressure.
The company says it cultivates, extracts and processes pharmaceutical-grade natural psilocybin. They add they optimize the consistency and standardization of natural psilocybin active pharmaceutical ingredients to meet regulatory compliance standards.
With the recently granted license, Albert Labs will be able to distribute active pharmaceutical ingredients to Canada as well as internationally where import licenses exist.
It will now be able to supply products for its Real World Evidence trial in the United Kingdom.
Once a medicinal product is approved, the company can provide health care professionals with medicines under prescribed conditions.
"The Canadian Government has created a beneficial environment for business to develop psychotherapeutic prescription drugs, which have the potential to help millions of sufferers with anxiety, depression and other mental health indications," Raymont added.
"Mental health issues can ruin lives, wreck families, and cost economies billions in lost productivity. It's inspiring to see Canada as a leader in mental health R&D and treatments."
