Albert Hofmann and psilocybin: how Sandoz isolated it in 1958, and what happened next

Albert Hofmann and psilocybin share a documented birth date in Western science, which is unusual for a compound that people had been eating in ceremony long before any laboratory. This guide follows the scientific record of that moment: who did the work, what each paper reports, what the company that employed Hofmann did with the result, and how the legal map changed within about a decade. It is a history. It does not describe how to find, grow, make or take anything.

It is one of several linked guides. For the compound itself, see what psilocybin is; for the name on the 1958 paper’s title, see Psilocybe mexicana: the name, its type record and the 1958 psilocybin papers; for the wider timeline, see our history of magic mushrooms.

Who isolated psilocybin, and when?

A Swiss team at Sandoz, led by the chemist Albert Hofmann with the mycologist Roger Heim as a co-author, did. The first report is a March 1958 note in the journal Experientia by Hofmann, Heim, Brack and Kobel. Its title, in German, calls psilocybin a psychotropic active substance from the Mexican mushroom Psilocybe mexicana Heim (Hofmann et al., 1958). A fuller account in Helvetica Chimica Acta followed in 1959. Its abstract says the active principles of the fungus were isolated in crystalline form and named psilocybin and psilocin (Hofmann et al., 1959). Evidence: established for these dates, titles and authors, which we checked in bibliographic records; we did not read the full papers.

Two details are easy to blur. First, the 1958 names are not identical to the 1959 ones: the March 1958 title uses “psilocybin” and the indexed French title uses “psilocybine” and “psicoline”, the latter being how that record spells the second compound (Heim et al., 1958). Second, “discovered” is a loose word. These papers date the chemical isolation and identification, not the long human use of the mushrooms. Our guide to María Sabina and the history of magic mushrooms follow that wider story.

How did the mushrooms reach Hofmann’s laboratory?

A 2026 review of the chemistry of Psilocybe mushrooms says Roger Heim, who had accompanied R. Gordon Wasson and identified several mushrooms as Psilocybe species, managed to cultivate Psilocybe mexicana in France and gave a quantity to Hofmann at Sandoz (Tabal-Robles et al., 2026). So the material Sandoz worked with was not simply collected in Mexico. Heim’s French cultures supplied it, which is why the 1958 Comptes rendus title is about formation of fruit bodies and sclerotia in culture. Evidence: reported in a review article; we could not open Hofmann’s own memoir, which the host blocked, so we treat the sequence as reported rather than primary.

The same review says the extract was separated by chromatography, that the chromatogram was cut into bands that volunteers ingested to locate the active fraction, and that Hofmann then isolated enough of the active compound, a relatively stable, water-soluble crystalline substance, which he called psilocybin, plus a minor companion he named psilocin (Tabal-Robles et al., 2026). A 2016 review adds that early animal tests on the fractions gave no clear result, and that doubts about whether the dried, cultured material was still active led Hofmann to test it on himself (Serés García, 2016). We do not repeat quantities from that account: this page is not a dosing guide, and a historical self-experiment is not a model for anyone.

What was the cultured mycelium step, and why did it matter?

The 1959 abstract says psilocybin and psilocin are present not only in fruit bodies but also in artificially cultivated mycelium and in sclerotia (hardened resting masses of fungal tissue) (Hofmann et al., 1959). That matters for a plain industrial reason. A pharmaceutical company that wants to supply a research compound cannot depend on whatever mushrooms happen to be collected. Material that can be produced under controlled conditions is a different proposition.

The Sandoz patent states this problem directly. Its description says that until then it had been impossible to isolate the active substance from natural fungi or from cultured fungal material, and impossible to culture active species in amounts large enough for preparative work. It then claims an industrial process that obtains the compounds from fungal material of natural origin or from cultures (US patent 3,183,172). The patent record, which lists Heim, Hofmann, Brack, Kobel and Cailleux as inventors and Sandoz as assignee, gives a priority date of 21 February 1958, a filing date of 16 February 1959 and a grant on 11 May 1965. We deliberately do not summarise the culture conditions it describes.

One more number from the 1959 abstract helps put the chemistry in proportion: it says the dried mushroom contained 0.2 to 0.4 per cent psilocybin, with psilocin present at most in traces (Hofmann et al., 1959). That is a single analysis of a single material from the 1950s. It does not transfer to other species, strains or products. For how potency claims should be read, see our guide to what lab studies establish.

How was psilocybin synthesised?

The November 1958 Experientia paper by Hofmann, Frey, Ott, Petrzilka and Troxler is titled, in German, “Structure elucidation and synthesis of psilocybin” (Hofmann et al., 1958b). That is the earliest laboratory-made psilocybin in this record, and it is why several reviews describe psilocybin as having been isolated and then synthesised by Hofmann at Sandoz (Sherwood et al., 2022). We read the bibliographic record only, so we do not describe the route, and the sources we read do not say which route Sandoz used for the material it later supplied.

The two compounds are related as a prodrug and its active product. Psilocybin is converted in the body into psilocin; our guide to psilocin and psilocybin explains the difference in plain language.

What was Indocybin, Sandoz’s psilocybin product?

Indocybin was the trade name under which Sandoz supplied psilocybin to researchers and clinicians. A 2022 crystallography paper says that throughout the 1960s and 1970s Sandoz distributed bulk psilocybin and tablets under that name worldwide, and reports analysing a Sandoz lot dated December 1963 from a US research-drug archive (Sherwood et al., 2022). A 2024 review says Sandoz supplied psilocybin as Indocybin for 1960s studies in Europe and the United States (Neumann et al., 2024). The company already supplied LSD to researchers under the name Delysid, and a 2019 review notes that psilocybin was likewise made available as Indocybin (Nutt, 2019).

The launch year is less settled than the product. One 2022 review says psilocybin was made available under the Indocybin name in 1958 (Coppola et al., 2022); a 2024 review says Sandoz produced it in 1960 (Valdez et al., 2024). We did not find a dated Sandoz document in the sources we could open, so we say only that the product existed by the early 1960s and that the exact year differs between reviews. Evidence: established that Indocybin existed and was supplied for research; the start date is not established.

A research supply is not a medicine approval. Nothing in these sources says Indocybin was approved for treating any condition, and we do not claim that. For what modern trials report, see our guides to the clinical evidence, which cover results and limits separately.

What happened to psilocybin research in the late 1960s?

Here the sources are mostly secondary, and we say so. A 2025 qualitative study of psychedelic researchers summarises the period this way: by the mid-1960s psychedelics had left the laboratory and become a countercultural phenomenon; Sandoz ceased production of LSD and psilocybin in 1965, a decision the authors attribute, citing Hofmann’s memoir, to a lack of financial incentive to renew the expired patent and to government pressure over widespread recreational use; the Controlled Substances Act then prohibited psychedelics in the United States in 1970 and research funding dried up (Barber et al., 2025). A 2025 review says research and access became increasingly restricted, ending definitively with the 1970 Act (Dodd et al., 2025).

Those statements do not fit together perfectly. The crystallography paper above describes Sandoz distributing psilocybin through the 1960s and 1970s and analyses a 1963 lot, which is compatible with production ending in 1965 and stock being supplied afterwards, but we have no source that says so. We have not read the memoir behind the 1965 date. Treat 1965 as one reported date, and the sequence “widespread non-medical use, then legal control, then research largely stopping” as the consistent part of the secondary accounts. It is not a precise causal account, and our sources do not weigh how much each factor mattered.

What did the 1970 US law and the 1971 UN Convention say about psilocybin?

The United States Controlled Substances Act is Title II of Public Law 91-513, signed on 27 October 1970. In the Schedule I list of the Act as enacted, under hallucinogenic substances, items (15) and (16) are psilocybin and psilocyn (Public Law 91-513). Today’s statute text, which we read on 10 October 2026, still lists psilocybin and psilocyn in Schedule I, and states the Schedule I criteria as a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety under medical supervision (21 U.S.C. § 812). Evidence: established as statute text.

Internationally, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances was adopted at Vienna on 21 February 1971 and entered into force on 16 August 1976; the UN Treaty Collection record also shows Canada acceding on 10 September 1988 (UN Treaty Collection). The Convention’s text lists psilocybine and psilocine among the substances in its Schedule I (UNODC text of the Convention). The text we read names the compounds, not mushrooms, and it contains a provision (Article 32, paragraph 4) letting a state make reservations for wild plants traditionally used by small, determined groups in magical or religious rites. We did not assess how any country applies this, and our guide to how magic mushrooms became illegal in Canada covers the Canadian side with its own sources.

What do these records not tell us?

• The full contents of the 1958 and 1959 papers: we read their records and one abstract, not the texts.
• Hofmann’s own account of the work, which we could not open. Its details reach us only through reviews.
• The exact date Indocybin was first sold and the exact date and reason Sandoz stopped, as discussed above.
• Who else was working on the problem, or what any later laboratory found; this page follows one team’s paper trail, not the whole field.
• Anything about whether psilocybin is safe or beneficial. A chemistry history cannot answer that; see what psilocybin is and our safety page.

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