Psyence Group Completes First Cultivation Cycle of Medical Psilocybin Mushrooms at Its Commercially Licensed Facility

TORONTO, Jan. 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Psyence Group Inc. (“Psyence” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has concluded its first cultivation and harvest cycle of natural medical psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms were grown, harvested, processed, and packed at its premium production facility in Lesotho which has been designed and built to the highest international standards.

Jody Aufrichtig, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Psyence commented: “This is an important milestone in Psyence’s journey to becoming one of the first federally licensed producers of high quality, medicinal-grade mushrooms for the legal medical and research markets. Market research has shown that there is a significant shortage of Good Manufacturing Practice certified and legally produced psilocybin products and we are able to supply and service the global research market from our production facility.”

The facility, which is based in Lesotho (Southern Africa), has been designed and constructed to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14644-1 Cleanroom specifications and engineering design principles. This design allows various parts of the process to comply with the Good Manufacturing Practice (“GMP”) Standards required for product safety and quality to meet the certification needs of The British Standards Institute (“BSI”). The facility is registered with the US Food and Drug Administration (“US-FDA”) and is equipped with validated and calibrated specialised equipment to ensure optimum growing conditions and efficient harvesting and packaging. Through process, equipment and facility validations, Psyence ensures a consistent end product in terms of safety and quality. The facility design allows for rapid expansion with minimum interference to operations.

Aufrichtig continued: “The results of our first cultivation and harvest process have been overwhelmingly positive, proving that our equipment is performing to the highest standard; our staff are experienced and well trained; our harvest system is working optimally, and our standard operating procedures are efficient and robust.”

The first harvest is serving as an R&D batch. It is being used to inform product characterization as well as to test transport routes to global licensed research and medical customers in legal jurisdictions. Following the success of the first harvest, three more batches will be cultivated and harvested in order to validate all of the processes as our roadmap to attaining BSI certification. Cultivation of the second batch is already underway; the cultivation and harvesting process, from spore inoculation to vacuum packing and storing takes approximately 10 weeks to complete and can be done on a continual basis.

Following the conclusion of three successful and approved validation batches the processes will be audited and BSI certification will be concluded.

About Psyence Group:
The Psyence Group intends to set the global standard for natural psychedelics. The executive team have international experience in the business of science and medicine and include global experts in neurology, neuroscience and drug development. Psyence has built and operates one of the first federally licensed commercial psilocybin cultivation and production facilities. Psyence are pioneering the use of natural psilocybin for the long-term treatment of psychological trauma and its mental health consequences. The Psyence Group have a global footprint operating across multiple legal jurisdictions, through the advanced provision of psychedelic therapy and experience, as well as market leading functional mushroom brands and product portfolio.

For more information
Website: www.psyence.com
Media Inquiries: media@psyence.com
General Information: info@psyence.com

Forward Looking Information

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