Public Sector Health & Drug Governance

Canadian public HTA and reimbursement review body supporting evidence appraisal for access decisions.

Canada�s federal health research funding agency setting national biomedical and health-services research priorities.

U.S. national public health agency responsible for surveillance, risk communication, and epidemiologic guidance.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of the Scottish Government funds NHS and health research across Scotland, and has supported University of Edinburgh evaluability work on ketamine-assisted therapy and the development of the Scottish Psychedelic Research Group to build Scotland’s capacity for psychedelic-assisted therapy studies.

U.S. federally directed defense-health research program office administering targeted grants, including mental-health priorities.

Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) is the country's primary public funding agency for scientific research, providing grants, scholarships, and R&D support to universities and research institutions nationwide. CNPq ranks among the top global funders of psychedelic science, having supported seminal ayahuasca clinical trials, pharmacological studies, and productivity fellowships for researchers who established Brazil as a world leader in psychedelic psychiatry.

CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) is Brazil's federal agency for graduate education improvement, providing scholarships, postdoctoral fellowships, and institutional research grants to universities nationwide. Ranked among the top-six global funders of psychedelic research in a 2023 Scopus analysis, CAPES has financed ayahuasca neuroscience studies, clinical investigations, and postdoctoral programmes that underpin Brazil's internationally recognised psychedelic research ecosystem.

The Czech Health Research Council (AZV ČR) is an organisational component of the Czech Ministry of Health responsible for funding applied health research, distributing over 1 billion CZK annually across approximately 90 supported projects per year. It provided the primary grant for the PSIKET001 trial — a landmark double-blind comparison of psilocybin versus ketamine for treatment-resistant depression at the National Institute of Mental Health — with a total budget of 12 million CZK.

EU public health agency focused on disease surveillance, risk assessment, and evidence dissemination for member states.

EU medicines regulator for scientific review and pharmacovigilance, including psychiatric products with psychedelic relevance.

EU public drugs observatory and surveillance body publishing trend and risk evidence including hallucinogen/psychedelic monitoring.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is the pioneering Western government funder of large-scale psychedelic clinical trials, having provided approximately €5 million to the EPIsoDE study — the first government-funded Phase 2 psilocybin trial for treatment-resistant major depression — conducted at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim and Charité Berlin. Germany subsequently became the first EU country to establish a psilocybin compassionate access program for treatment-resistant depression.

Canadian federal health regulator administering controlled access and oversight pathways relevant to psychedelic therapies.

The Health Research Board (HRB) is Ireland's primary statutory health research funding agency, which has awarded grants to Trinity College Dublin's Psychedelic Research Group to investigate psychedelics' immune effects in depression and the feasibility of psilocybin for cocaine-use disorder. The HRB also funds the KARMA-DEP(2) ketamine trial for treatment-resistant depression at St Patrick's University Hospital in Dublin, making it a key enabler of Ireland's emerging psychedelic medicine ecosystem.

Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) is France's national public health and medical research agency, funding and conducting biomedical research across university-hospital institutes throughout the country. INSERM-affiliated researchers at the Paris Brain Institute (ICM) and Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital have contributed to preclinical and clinical investigations of ketamine and psilocybin as rapid-acting antidepressants.

Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) is Mexico's largest social security institute, operating the country's most extensive public hospital and clinic network serving over 70 million workers and their families. An IMSS-affiliated facility has participated in clinical research on ketamine for treating depressive symptoms in elderly patients with visual impairment.

Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) is Spain's national public health research agency, managing the CIBERSAM network (Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental) which co-funds biomedical mental health research across Spanish universities and hospitals. Through CIBERSAM, ISCIII has co-funded preclinical and translational research on psilocybin as an antidepressant and supports researchers contributing to the European psychedelic therapy landscape.

Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE) is Mexico's federal social security institute for government employees, operating a nationwide network of hospitals and clinics serving millions of public-sector workers and their families. An ISSSTE-affiliated facility has participated in clinical research examining ketamine's effect on depressive symptoms in elderly patients with visual impairment.

Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) is Italy's National Institute of Health, the country's principal technical and scientific public body for biomedical research, public health surveillance, and regulatory advisory functions. The institute has participated in pharmacological research on designer psychoactive substances including methylone, an MDMA analogue, contributing to Italy's evidence base for novel psychoactive substance regulation.

UK medicines regulator overseeing trial authorizations, pharmacovigilance, and market-authorization pathways.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the principal US federal agency for cancer research and training, one of 27 institutes within the National Institutes of Health, with an annual budget exceeding $7 billion. In the psychedelic field, NCI has supported trials exploring psilocybin-assisted therapy for cancer-related demoralization and chronic pain in survivors, as well as ketamine infusion to prevent depression in patients undergoing treatment for pancreatic and head-and-neck cancers.

NIH center that accelerates the translation of biomedical discoveries into health solutions. NCATS' Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program funds the infrastructure at academic medical centers that supports emerging research including psychedelic-assisted therapy trials.

U.S. federal institute focused on complementary/integrative research and evidence programs including psychedelic-adjacent contexts.

The National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD) is a US Department of Veterans Affairs centre of excellence for research, education, and training on post-traumatic stress disorder, operating across seven VA medical centre sites with a focus on evidence-based assessment and treatment. The Centre has supported mechanistic ketamine research in military and veteran populations, including an investigation of AMPA receptor blockade on ketamine’s anti-suicidal effects relevant to veteran mental health crises.

The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) was a National Institutes of Health centre that funded biomedical research infrastructure, clinical and translational science programmes, and shared research resources until its dissolution in 2011, when its programmes were reorganised primarily into the new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCRR infrastructure and clinical research awards supported early NIH-funded investigations into glutamate-modulating medications for major depressive disorder that laid the mechanistic groundwork for understanding ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects.

The National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) is Argentina’s principal government agency for promoting science and technology, funding over 11,000 researchers and 10,000 doctoral students across a nationwide network of research institutes and centres. CONICET supported the NATMICRO study, a naturalistic observational investigation of the psychological and cognitive effects of self-administered psilocybin microdosing conducted in Argentina.

UK public health research funder and implementation infrastructure supporting NHS-oriented evidence generation.

UK HTA body issuing evidence and cost-effectiveness recommendations that influence medicine access.

U.S. federal institute defining mental-health research agendas and evidence-generation priorities including psychedelic-relevant studies.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is a US National Institutes of Health institute dedicated to research on alcohol use disorder and its public health impacts, supporting approximately $500 million in research annually. NIAAA has funded studies exploring both ketamine administration for acute alcohol use disorder in the emergency department and psilocybin-assisted therapy to understand the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying alcohol use disorder treatment.

U.S. federal institute setting addiction-research priorities and portfolios, including psychedelic-related investigations.

U.S. federal biomedical research agency shaping institute-level priority and research funding architecture.

Oregon state health authority administering Oregon Psilocybin Services licensing and implementation oversight.

State-level Oregon pharmacy and therapeutics decision body supporting evidence-driven formulary and utilization policy.

Canada�s national public health agency responsible for surveillance, risk assessment, and public-health guidance.

Texas state health agency overseeing policy functions and implementation of psychedelic-adjacent public initiatives such as ibogaine programs.

Australian national regulator for scheduling, prescribing pathways, and safety oversight including MDMA/psilocybin psychiatry contexts.

US federal regulator for drug development and safety oversight, including psychedelic clinical-investigation pathways.

U.S. Veterans Affairs research authority overseeing national veteran-focused clinical research programs including psychedelic-adjacent initiatives.

Washington State HTA program conducting evidence review that informs state coverage and utilization policy.