The Exciting Rise Of Ketamine Therapy
Ketamine therapy is recognized as a viable treatment for various mental disorders including depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
It is a Schedule III drug which makes it more accessible to 50 million Americans who suffer from mental illness.
Ketamine psychedelic therapy is a burgeoning industry worth up to $3.4 billion. It is expected to grow by 10.6% and reach $6.8 billion by 2030 as more people grow accustomed to psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Not bad for a substance that was once scoffed off as a ‘horse tranquilizer’ and was only approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in 1970.
The Origins of Ketamine
The origin of ketamine is often credited to Professor Calvin Lee Stevens, Ph.D, a Professor of Organic Chemistry at Wayne State University. But the history of ketamine’s discovery actually started in the 1950’s at Parke-Davis and Company’s in Detroit, Michigan.
The laboratory was looking for a way to synthesize an ‘ideal’ anesthetic agent with analgesic properties. The process went through several hands and was unsuccessful until Stevens joined their team as a chemical consultant almost a decade later.
Using the previous work from his colleagues, he synthesized several unique series of phencyclidine derivatives. In 1962 one of them was discovered to have excellent anesthesia properties and was also short acting. It was successfully put through human trials and eventually patented in Belgium in 1963 as a veterinary anesthetic.
Fun fact: Ketamine got its name because the chemical CI-581 is ketone together with an amine.
From Tranquilizer To Transformative Therapy
Ketamine became available by prescription in 1969 under the name ‘Ketalar’. After its official approval by the FDA in 1970 it was widely used as a field anesthetic to soldiers during the Vietnam war.
Today, ketamine is used to manage treatment-resistant depression. For instance, patients who have not responded to conventional antidepressant medications or psychotherapy.
Sarah Gutilla was one of these patients. In 2022, her depression had spiraled to the point where she was contemplating taking her own life. Thankfully her husband managed to get her admitted to the Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles where she received intravenous ketamine therapy.
“The amount of relief I felt after the first treatment was what I think ‘normal’ is supposed to feel like,” said the 34-year old who suffered from a history of physical violence, sexual abuse and drug use.
“I’ve never felt so OK and so at peace.” she said in an interview with NPR.
Although it is legal for doctors to prescribe ketamine, it is not FDA-approved for mental health treatment. Which makes ketamine therapy unattractive to insurance companies.
Many insurance plans cover mental health care at a much lower rate than physical ones. This cuts off many suffering from debilitating mental conditions from essential care. Gutilla’s husband had to scrape together $600 and send her 75 miles to the nearest clinic so that she could receive her six rounds of intravenous ketamine therapy.
The federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act which was enacted and untouched since 2008 basically allows insurance companies to opt out of mental health coverage.
“We’ve been playing this rope-a-dope with them [insurers] now for 15 years. And the fact is that without more stringent enforcement, plans have just basically scoffed at the law and have ignored the law,” said Shawn Coughlin, president and CEO of the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare.
“This is why states have stepped in … because the federal parity law really just does not have any real teeth in this enforcement.”
