The Department of Health and Human Services is working to advance research into psychedelic and other rapid-acting psychiatric drugs as potential treatments for mental health and substance use disorders through two initiatives announced Thursday.
The department will invest up to $4.9 million over five years to advance the powerful psychoactive drug ibogaine as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly among veterans.
The initial awards, administered through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, will support the regulatory, clinical and manufacturing groundwork needed to pursue future clinical trials, rather than fund human clinical trials or patient treatment.
Veterans organizations have been among the most vocal proponents of expanding access to ibogaine, arguing that it could offer an alternative to conventional treatments that have failed some patients.
“Veterans have told us ibogaine changed their lives. Their experiences demand serious scientific investigation,” Kennedy said.
Separately, the National Institute of Mental Health opened a $20 million funding opportunity to establish a research network studying rapid-acting psychiatric treatments, including psilocybin, ketamine and esketamine. Funding recipients are expected to be announced in summer 2027.
The initiatives are part of a broader effort by the administration to accelerate research into psychedelic treatments for serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders.
In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to expedite research and regulatory reviews of experimental psychedelic treatments, including ibogaine, and allocate at least $50 million in existing funding to support state psychedelic research initiatives.
Americans for Ibogaine, an organization founded in 2025 that advocates for developing ibogaine into an FDA-approved medication, called Thursday’s announcement a “huge step forward.”
Its CEO, Bryan Hubbard, previously led efforts in Kentucky to use opioid settlement funds to support the drug’s development as a treatment for addiction.
Hubbard said Thursday’s announcement represents unusually rapid progress toward the medicalization of ibogaine.
“The federal government is not merely sitting back as a third-party referee [whose role], over the history of psychedelics in the U.S., has primarily been to prohibit or to imprison prospects for progress,” Hubbard told The Center Square. “Through its funding mechanisms and through its research agencies, the federal government is actively facilitating progress toward medicalization across multiple clinical indications.”
HHS notes, however, that ibogaine can cause dangerous changes in heart rhythm, including potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmias, and other organizations are less enthusiastic about its advancement.
The Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions says ibogaine’s risks “start with the heart,” calling it a “drug that can kill.” The organization notes that it is “not against studying ibogaine” and “if a synthetic analog without the cardiac liability can pass real trials, the FDA should approve it.”
Research teams led by Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company will work toward developing a domestically manufactured, pharmaceutical-grade ibogaine product, while Beond Inc. will contribute clinical data to help researchers evaluate the drug’s safety, dosing and potential effectiveness. The research findings will be made publicly available.
HHS expects additional awards to support research into ibogaine for substance use disorders, including opioid addiction. The agency is also seeking to establish a pathway for affordable treatment if the drug eventually receives FDA approval.
At the 2026 Make America Healthy Again Summit, several executives from psychedelic drug development companies argued that more effective treatments are needed for mental health conditions, noting that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have remained a mainstay of depression treatment since the 1990s. They argued that psychedelic drugs could help fill a gap in existing treatment options by providing faster-acting and longer-lasting relief for some patients.
Because of their potentially serious physical and psychological effects, the treatment pathways being pursued for some of these drugs involve administration in controlled medical settings under professional supervision, rather than independent use by patients at home. Some treatments involve lengthy sessions with continuous monitoring.
Hubbard said ibogaine treatment typically involves 10 to 12 hours of continuous monitoring by medical personnel, followed by an extended period of recovery, emphasizing that the experience is markedly different from recreational psychedelic use.
“It’s a physically debilitating treatment… There’s nothing about it that is a party experience,” Hubbard said. “It’s a very medicinal impact that the individual experiences.”
The initiatives announced Thursday aim to build a more substantial body of research on some experimental psychiatric drugs, where in some cases, like with ibogaine, it has been limited.
