General Assembly meeting, June 4th & 5th 2024
Haarlem, the Netherlands
On June 4th and 5th 2024, partners in the PsyPal General Assembly gathered in scenic Haarlem to mark the project’s first General Assembly meeting. Following a successful kick-off General Assembly meeting in Amsterdam earlier this year, this meeting provided the opportunity for 35 members of the assembly to discuss open questions on the project with a particular focus on the clinical trial.
PsyPal partners heard from all four clinical sites about the life-limiting illness they currently treat. This ranges from Multiple Sclerosis in the Czech Republic, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Denmark to Atypical Parkinson’s Disease in Portugal and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in the Netherlands. Depression can feature frequently in patients with these conditions and is often unaddressed or difficult to alleviate with current treatments. PsyPal is striving to investigate a new method of addressing this unmet need by exploring the use of psilocybin therapy in a rigorous clinical trial.
During the meeting, core details relating to the implementation of PsyPal were discussed and generated keen and fruitful conversation between all partners. The needs of patients were central to these discussions, with partners keen to outline step-by-step what participating in the PsyPal trial would entail and how their needs can be best anticipated and addressed throughout. Details related to therapist training were clarified and discussed, as well as potential ethical concerns with the input from an independent ethics advisor.
Overall, partners described feeling both challenged but excited by being part of this ambitious, landmark project. The next stage for PsyPal is the completion and submission of the trial protocol, which will be reviewed by regulators and has to be approved prior to recruiting participants in 2025Learn more about PsyPal by exploring our website: www.psypal.eu or by reading our project press release: https://palliativeprojects.eu/psypal/2024/03/19/news-coming-soon/
