Husch Blackwell has launched its Psychedelics and Emerging Therapies team, an interdisciplinary, cross-office group of lawyers capable of addressing the challenges faced by innovators that seek to research, develop and commercialize novel therapies based on psychedelic drugs. Many of these drugs are regulated by a patchwork of state and federal laws regulating Schedule I controlled substances.

The establishment of the firm’s Psychedelics and Emerging Therapies team makes Husch Blackwell the first Am Law 100 firm to create a practice devoted to serving the psychedelics industry.

Similar to the early days of the medical cannabis movement, psychedelic drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, ketamine and DMT are being developed for therapeutic use in a complex and difficult legal and regulatory environment. Although the current legal and regulatory environment can frustrate efforts to research these drugs for use in new therapies, Husch Blackwell attorneys are guiding researchers, manufacturers, investors, clinicians, and other participants around and through these various state legal and regulatory regimes. The firm’s multidisciplinary team covers commercial, regulatory and legal requirements spanning U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on clinical trials, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) licensing, material transfer agreements and cooperative research and development agreements (CRDA).

Led by Natasha Sumner, Kimberly Chew and Karen Luong, the Psychedelics and Emerging Therapies practice provides clients a full suite of legal services—including healthcare regulatory, corporate law, corporate governance, banking and finance, and intellectual property, among others—that bear upon the development of new products and therapies. The HB cannabis team will be working closely with the psychedelics team to address the challenges faced by both industries.