Reunion Neuroscience Files Lawsuit Against Mindset Pharma & Field Trip Moves Towards Closing its Clinics
It’s been a serious few weeks for the Field Trip / Reunion Neuroscience team.
First, we have the breaking news that Reunion Neuroscience has sued Mindset Pharma. Reunion is the drug development company spun off from the Field Trip umbrella, and they’ve been working on RE104 (a compound informally known as “Isoprocin Glutarate”, a prodrug of 4-OH-DiPT), earning a patent for it in 2022.
The drama began when Mindset Pharma was recently granted a U.S. patent for its lead candidate drug, MSP-1014, a drug that’s apparently based on the same compound. And so we had two companies with patents on the same drug.
The soap opera match was lit, and now we have the first scene.
Reunion filed a lawsuit against Mindset Pharma, claiming that Mindset “knowingly copied Reunion’s RE104 compound and misleadingly presented that exact composition to the Patent Office as Mindset’s innovation”.
Reunion says that after its own patent application was made public, Mindset made changes to its own previous patent application to include chemical similarities to Reunion’s RE104.
There are also accusations the Mindset went back on good faith “handshake” agreements made when trying to settle the issue.
With 4-OH-DiPT offering potentially more efficient delivery and efficacy than classic psychedelics, both claimants will want to be the patent victors here. Let’s see how this plays out in court. See the full press release here.
Note: Mindset Pharma has just announced
that it “… disagrees with and denies the allegations set forth from Reunion. The Company plans to vigorously defend itself against this lawsuit.
Field Trip Health Considers Closing Clinics
In related news, Field Trip Health, the company’s treatment clinic entity, continues to re-evaluate its clinic model.
Signs are pointing in the direction that Field Trip may be closing or seriously restructuring its clinic operations. During its recent quarterly results, Field Trip announced that it hired a third-party consultant to review the business and suggest restructuring, including:
to perform a review of operations and investigate alternate courses of actions including, but not limited to, further cost reductions, restructuring, the potential sublease or closure of clinic locations and settlement of lease obligations
This move seems to be the result of several factors, mainly the clinic’s high operational and personnel costs and the recent legal changes made to ketamine telehealth rules, which are likely to reduce the ease of patient access.
…a federal law known as the Ryan Haight Act requires physicians to have an in-person consultation with a patient before prescribing controlled substances. The federal government waived that requirement during the PHE declaration. This allowed entrepreneurial ketamine telehealth clinics and their physicians to enter into patient relationships without in-person consults.
See the full press release here and stay tuned for more on Field Trip and its operations.
