WASHINGTON, D.C. — In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating research into psychedelic drugs for mental illness. The order specifically referenced ibogaine and issued priority review vouchers to Compass Pathways, Usona Institute, and Transcend Therapeutics to speed up parts of the FDA review process for psychedelic or MDMA-like therapies. The White House stated that psychedelic compounds "show potential in clinical studies to address serious mental illnesses for patients whose conditions persist after completing standard therapy."
Shares of psychedelic drug developers such as Compass Pathways rallied following the announcement. The move marked a shift from the Trump administration’s harder stance on cannabis and other controlled substances during his first term.
Brandon Weiss, a researcher at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, emphasized the differences among psychedelic substances. "One of the things that's important to recognize is these are all very different drugs," Weiss said. "Ibogaine has particularly high cardiovascular risks, and so what needs to be done is a very measured, methodical weighting of the safety and the efficacy between ibogaine and other compounds," he said.
Ibogaine has not undergone large-scale clinical trials in the United States and has been linked to potentially serious cardiovascular side effects. Historically, research into psychedelics has focused on psilocybin for depression, MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, and LSD for anxiety. Although MDMA is technically classified as an empathogen rather than a classic psychedelic, researchers and regulators often group MDMA-assisted therapy within the broader psychedelic medicine field because it involves supervised therapeutic sessions for conditions like PTSD, depression, and addiction. In late-stage trials sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, roughly 71% of participants with severe PTSD no longer met diagnostic criteria for the disorder after MDMA-assisted therapy sessions. The FDA rejected a previous application for MDMA-assisted therapy in 2024, citing concerns about the design of the late-stage study and the need for additional data.