Indocybin was Sandoz’s name for the psilocybin it supplied for research. A 2022 crystallography paper says Sandoz distributed bulk psilocybin and tablets under that name worldwide through the 1960s and 1970s, and analyses a Sandoz lot dated December 1963 (Sherwood et al., 2022). A 2024 review says it was supplied for 1960s psychiatric studies in Europe and the United States (Neumann et al., 2024).
Its start date is not settled. One 2022 review says psilocybin was made available as Indocybin in 1958 (Coppola et al., 2022), while a 2024 review says Sandoz produced it in 1960 (Valdez et al., 2024). It existed by the early 1960s; Harvard’s psilocybin researchers said in 1962 that “the synthesizer of psilocybin” had approved their work (Harvard Crimson, 1962).
A research supply is not a medicine approval. None of these sources says Indocybin was approved for treating any condition, and the name has no role in today’s trials, which use newer synthetic preparations.
Sources
- Sherwood et al., 2022, Acta Crystallographica C
- Neumann et al., 2024, Frontiers in Pharmacology
- Coppola, Bevione and Mondola, 2022
- Valdez et al., 2024, Pharmaceuticals
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