Our Mission

Our goal is to help millions of cluster headache patients access safe, effective pain relief treatments as soon as possible. Their pain cannot go unnoticed for one more day.

Effective treatments for cluster headache exist, from high-flow oxygen to novel compounds currently being studied in clinical trials. Yet most patients worldwide face enormous barriers to accessing them due to long diagnostic delays, lack of medical awareness, regulatory restrictions, and inadequate insurance coverage. Some of the most promising treatments (such as psychedelics of the indoleamine family) remain illegal in most countries, forcing patients to break the law to treat their pain.

We have a strong conviction that no one should ever have to experience a severe cluster headache attack. As such, our core metric is the number of Days Lived in Extreme Suffering (DLES) that we can help avert. Every severe cluster headache attack that we can prevent represents a meaningful reduction in some of the most intense suffering an individual can experience.

Our Work

To minimize the suffering caused by cluster headaches, we currently focus on three areas:

Helping patients find effective treatments sooner. We publish ClusterInfo, a growing repository of free, multilingual guides on how to treat cluster headaches, from high-flow oxygen to off-label options.
Advancing research into new treatments. We conduct and support research into promising treatments for cluster headache, prioritizing indoleamines, a family of compounds that are highly effective and remarkably safe at low doses. As an example, we're supporting an effort to run a Phase 2a trial of BOL-148 (a non-hallucinogenic LSD analog).
Advocacy. We advocate for universal access to effective treatments and increased research funding, through open letters to decision-makers and by working to include cluster headache in Right to Try and Compassionate Use programs in various jurisdictions.

While much of our current focus is on compounds of the indoleamine family (given their efficacy and low risk profile), we encourage and support any effort to make safe, effective treatments available to patients, whatever those treatments may be.

You can follow our updates here and learn more about our impact here.

Organizations

ClusterFree is a non-profit company based in London, UK. It was incubated in 2025 by the Qualia Research Institute.

We also collaborate closely with Clusterbusters and the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering, who have been at the forefront of cluster headache advocacy for years.

Team

Alfredo Parra, PhD

Co-Founder & Director

Andrés Gómez Emilsson

Co-Founder & Member of Advisory Board

Bob Wold

Member of Advisory Board

Jonathan Leighton, PhD

Member of Advisory Board

Kevin Lin

Member of Advisory Board

Contributors

Our work is made possible by volunteers and contractors who dedicate their time and skills to help patients access life-changing treatments. Get in touch if you would like to volunteer or work with us.