Cybin Partners with Kernel to Leverage its Breakthrough Neuroimaging Technology for Psychedelic Therapeutics

Quick Take:

Cybin Inc. (CYBN) (“Cybin”), a life sciences company focused on psychedelic therapeutics, is excited to announce that it has entered into an agreement with neurotech pioneer HI, LLC dba Kernel (“Kernel”) to leverage its innovative technology, Kernel Flow (“Flow”), for its upcoming sponsored clinical work. Click here to view the accompanying film.

Flow is a full-head coverage, time-domain functional near-infrared spectroscopy system designed to detect hemodynamic changes in the brain that pulses light through the skull and into the bloodstream in order to measure how much oxygen the blood is carrying at any given time. Flow measurements can be used as analogues of local neural activity during a psychedelic experience. Cybin expects the quantitative measurements enabled by Flow may improve the development, delivery and scaling of its psychedelic therapeutics.

“Access to Kernel’s innovative Flow technology adds another exciting dimension to the investigative work that Cybin is doing to develop breakthrough treatments for mental health disorders such as depression and addiction. Currently, clinical investigators rely on limited subjective information from patients. The ability to collect quantitative data from our sponsored drug development programs is potentially game-changing in terms of our ability to measure where psychedelics work in the brain in real time, and how we ultimately design our future therapeutics. We are delighted to partner with Kernel to study the utility of Flow in sponsored clinical settings. This new cornerstone component of our sponsored clinical programs follows a record-setting capital raise, listing on the NEO Exchange and the acquisition of Adelia Therapeutics Inc., which added significant scientific capabilities, novel molecules, delivery mechanisms and intellectual property,” stated Doug Drysdale, CEO of Cybin.

Cybin intends to take delivery of Flow in the second quarter of 2021. Cybin plans to undertake sponsored studies in a range of clinical conditions and utilize insights gained from the data collected by Flow technology to inform the design of future clinical studies, support regulatory submissions and aid in the design of future molecules to address the needs of mental health patients.

Cybin is a life sciences company advancing psychedelic therapeutics for various psychiatric and neurological conditions. Cybin is developing technologies and delivery systems, aiming to improve bioavailability, to potentially achieve the desired medicinal effects of psychedelics at low dosage levels. The new delivery systems are expected to be studied through sponsored clinical trials to confirm safety and efficacy.

Kernel is a team of neuroscientists, physicists, engineers, programmers, and experiment and operations experts driven by the belief that exploring and quantifying the human mind is the most important and consequential opportunity of our time. Based in Los Angeles, California, Kernel was founded in 2016 and has raised US$104 million to date including investment from founder Bryan Johnson, General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. Prior to Kernel, Johnson was the Founder and CEO of Braintree Venmo, which was acquired by eBay for US$800 million in 2013.

Flow is a headworn, scalable, non-invasive neuroimaging system. Flow leverages time-domain functional near-infrared spectroscopy, a gold standard optical method for detecting hemodynamics of the cerebral cortex. Time-domain systems acquire richer brain signals than traditional near-infrared spectroscopy devices by applying light in short pulses and precisely capturing the arrival time distribution of scattered photons from each pulse. This “time-of-flight” measurement reveals depth-dependent information and absolute optical properties of the brain. Changes in these measured optical properties allow inference of spatially localized neural activity.