A promising schizophrenia drug showed mixed results. What does that mean for patients?
Some people who took a new schizophrenia drug for one year improved with only a few side effects, but many dropped out of the research
Some people who took a new schizophrenia drug for a year improved with only a few side effects, but many dropped out of the research, the company announced Thursday.
The results underscore the difficulties in treating schizophrenia, a severe mental illness that can cause people to hear voices, feel paranoid and withdraw from others. High dropout rates are typical in schizophrenia drug studies.
Finding a drug that works can be a long ordeal punctuated by crises and hospitalizations. Side effects of existing medications — weight gain, tremors, restlessness — cause some people to stop taking medicine and relapse.
There's been great hope among doctors for Cobenfy, which was approved in September, because it acts in the brain differently than other schizophrenia drugs. Instead of blocking dopamine receptors, Cobenfy’s main ingredient, xanomeline, works on a different receptor that indirectly blocks dopamine release.
Cobenfy also contains trospium, which blocks some of the side effects. The most common are nausea, vomiting and indigestion. In contrast to the weight gain seen with other schizophrenia drugs, people lost a few pounds while taking Cobenfy, made by Bristol Myers Squibb.
Dr. John Krystal of Yale University has led research on other schizophrenia drugs but was not involved in the new studies. He noted that just 10% to 20% of participants in the new studies dropped out because of side effects.
“That is pretty good,” he said, noting that fewer or milder side effects could mean people will stay in treatment longer. That could mean fewer problems associated with untreated mental
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