EMD Gets an AP Specialist and $1.5M for First Responders

Our psychedelic assisted therapy Investment, Emyria (ASX: EMD) added another Authorised Prescriber (AP) specialist to its team today - which should markedly increase the volume of care it can deliver.

As we said in a recent note on EMD:

Authorised Prescriber (AP) Status is hard to get.

“It requires multiple submissions to the TGA, ethics approval, a tried and tested protocol for therapy delivery and strict guidelines on how the treatment can be administered.

Each specialist needs to apply individually for AP status, and only those with AP status can conduct MDMA assisted therapy outside of a clinical trial.

Now that EMD has undergone the process once, we expect that the company now has the “blueprint” for other specialists in its clinical practice to get AP status, which will allow the company to scale up its therapy offering.

This is the first step towards getting large institutions (payers) to fund therapies for its members - think Department of Veteran Affairs, Health Insurance Companies, Pension Funds etc…”

Well, the blueprint seems to be working - with EMD now having two AP specialists that can help deliver their care model.

Today’s news comes hot on the heels of another win this week - a binding research study agreement with a charity, Reach Wellness.

Reach will launch a fundraising campaign so that they can subsidise costs of treatment for an initial cohort of 50 qualified first responders amounting to an estimated total of $1.5 million.

We see this as an example of EMD engaging with large health payers - part of EMD’s scale up strategy.

What’s next?

EMD’s latest presentation lays out what the next 12 months will look like for the company.

This is what we’ve seen progress on in the last two materials announcements from EMD:

Based on a full treatment cost of $30,000 that first 20 patients milestone is not insignificant.

This is the key slide which shows how the cost of EMD’s treatment stacks up against the current standard of care:

(Source)

The cost effectiveness of EMD’s intensive 12-16 week program - we think - will be a major contributing factor, in addition to its overall efficacy, for major payers.

The Reach Wellness agreement, in combination with now having double the amount of AP specialists, means a higher volume of treatments and initial traction with a payer.

All ultimately adding up to iterative improvements to EMD’s bottom line.