GH Research Files to Go Public Only Two Months After Raising $125 Million

The psychedelics space continues to see rapid growth, as a relatively quiet company, GH Research, filed to go public on June 4, 2021. This comes only two months after raising a nine-figure, oversubscribed series B round from RA Capital, RTW Investments, BVF Partners. 

The Dublin-based biotech is focused on developing a novel and proprietary inhalable 5- Methoxy-N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) therapy for the treatment of patients with Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD). The company is also researching an injectable formulation of the drug. 

GH Research’s IPO raise will help fund its ongoing and future clinical trials. The company will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker $GHRS.

GH Research is focused on using 5-MeO-DMT, a serotonergic psychedelic, as a way to treat Treatment Resistant Depression. 5-MeO-DMT is also colloquially known as ‘toad venom’ due to its presence in the dried venom of Bufo alvarius, a toad native to the Sonoran Desert. 

In recent years, conservationists and psychedelic researchers, such as Hamilton Morris have been promoting the use of a synthetic version of 5-MeO-DMT in order to protect the Sonoran Desert Toad. 

GH Research is using synthetically developed, pharmaceutical grade 5-MeO-DMT for its product candidates. 

The first candidate, what GH Research is calling GH001, is an inhalable 5-MeO-DMT product. The company has completed a Phase 1 healthy volunteer clinical trial  in which “inhalation was observed to be well tolerated at the investigated single dose levels and in the individualized dosing regimen.” The company is now researching GH001 in a Phase 1/2 trial in patients with TRD.

GH Research is also planning clinical trials for what it is calling GH002, a 5-MeO-DMT product formulated for administration via injection. The company believes that GH002 will find use for patients with “underlying airway or pulmonary disease or in situations where it is difficult to assure that the GH001 inhalation is performed adequately, such as in acute psychiatric emergency care situations where a patient may be unable to use an inhalation device.”

The company currently has filed four patents patents covering novel aerosol compositions of matter of 5-MeO-DMT, novel manufacturing methods for the purification of 5-MeO-DMT, high purity 5-MeO-DMT and novel uses of 5-MeO-DMT in various disorders.