MDMA-Assisted Therapy's Increasing Cost Predictions (2016 - 2024)

In 2016, predictions about the cost of MDMA-Assisted Therapy treatment were as low as $3,000. Recent cost-effectiveness analysis in 2024 suggests the realistic cost is closer to $48,000.

This video provides an archived timeline of the increasing price predictions of MDMA-Assisted Therapy.

Sources:

"The Future of Therapy Involves a Little Bit of MDMA" by Ruth Reader, Mic (2016) https://www.mic.com/articles/138894/mdma-molly-ecstasy-ptsd-therapy

"The Future of MDMA: Phase 3 and Beyond" by Russell Hausfeld, Psymposia (2019) https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/future-of-mdma-phase-3-and-beyond/

"MDMA, Or Ecstasy, Shows Promise As A PTSD Treatment" by Will Stone, NPR (2019) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/14/746614170/mdma-aka-ecstasy-shows-promise-as-a-ptsd-treatment

"Updated cost-effectiveness of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States: Findings from a phase 3 trial" by Elliot Marseille, Jennifer M Mitchell, and James G Kahn, PLOS ONE (2022) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35213554/

"Is the High Cost of Psychedelic Therapy Worth It?" by Floris Wolswijk, Lucid News (2022) https://www.lucid.news/high-cost-psychedelic-therapy-worth-it/

"FDA to review MDMA-assisted therapy, a milestone for psychedelics" by Daniel Gilbert and David Ovalle, The Washington Post (2023) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/12/mdma-therapy-fda-maps/

"The cost-benefit of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD" by Psych (2023) https://psych.global/cost-benefit-of-mdma-assisted-therapy/

"Health Economics & Psychedelics, with Elliot Marseille & Jennifer Mitchell" by UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGRSbpBvgsc

"Insurance Coverage for Psychedelic Therapy" by Victor Joralemon (2024) https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2024/03/27/insurance-coverage-for-psychedelic-therapy/

Footage from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review's assessment of Lykos Therapeutics' MDMA-AT application (2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohD_nbaqSU4&list=PLJ7rscUNlop4jr8a8oQYfVgEziLIkp-Jx

"Cost-effectiveness of midomafetamine-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) in chronic and treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder of moderate or higher severity: A health-economic model" by Filip Stanicic,Vladimir Zah , Dimitrije Grbic, and Debra De Angelo, PLOS ONE (2024) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313569

Tweets from Joar Øveraas Halvorsen (Consultant clinical psychologist & associate professor of clinical psychology) and Josh Hardman (founder of Psychedelic Alpha) https://x.com/joarhalvorsen/status/1856787651161935878

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.

[00:00] Is

[01:30] And what you can't see there is that the total cost of the therapy is about $117,000 exchange makes me realize how unfortunate it is that lyos theraputics is not participating in the session today because these sort of technical questions about running the trial presumably would be much easier if they were present at the session they had published an earlier cost Effectiveness analysis where assumed that MDMA was $120 for a course of treatment and when we had suggested that price in an early draft of our Health economic analysis that was actually the only feedback we got from lyos was you're way low basically they didn't quite say it that way but that was what they were communicating and now you see the $10,000 that other people have assumed so I think proponents for this treatment would say that this is a way to give patient access to a new treatment or a

[02:32] Better treatment but if you ask conservatives or critics or whatever you like to call it like me I'm more skeptical we have to keep in mind that this treatment consist of 84 hours of therapist time compared to 18 to 16 hours of therapist time for already existent good evidence-based treatments so I'm a bit skeptical whether this would actually improve access to effective treatments for many patients but it feels like 84 hours of therapist time you know multiple dosing 8 Hour treatment days that feels like a Cadillac as we used to say it feels like wow that is just it's Exquisite it's huge it's expensive I hope to see the day when iser issues a favorable report on the cost effectiveness of a so-called psychedelic medication but regrettably today is not that day

[03:35] For