STEP - Stratification and Treatment in Early Psychosis

Doctors currently prescribe the same antipsychotic drugs to everyone with early psychosis, even though patients respond very differently. This project will test whether simple biomarkers—including data from patients’ own mobile devices—can predict who will improve and who will not, and whether personalised treatment plans work better than the current one-size-fits-all approach. The problem is that early psychosis treatment remains largely guesswork. Without reliable ways to stratify patients, many receive drugs that do not help them, while others miss out on treatments that might. This project also plans to evaluate cannabidiol (CBD) as a new class of treatment for psychosis, and to test whether existing drugs become more effective when matched to specific patient subgroups identified through stratification. If successful, this could shift how psychosis is assessed and treated from the earliest stages. Clinical services might reorganise around personalised care rather than standard protocols. The project also aims to build a global translational research platform for testing novel treatments, which could accelerate the development of new therapies and strengthen collaboration with industry. Digital tools embedded in mobile devices could become routine for monitoring and predicting outcomes, quietly improving care without requiring patients to visit clinics more often.