Schizophrenia Patients May Benefit from New Experimental Drug

According to a recently paper published in the journal Nature Medicine, a new experimental drug, named LY2140023, may have clear benefits for schizophrenia suffering patients.

The new drug has shown promise in phase II human trials. The LY2140023 drug targets glutamate receptors in the brain instead of dopamine, which is the traditional way o threat schizophrenia until now.

The study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, Voluneers suffering schizophrenia received in this phase of the study four weeks of treatment. Treatments considered are the new experimental drug LY2140023, olanzapine, or a placebo.

One hundred and ninety six people who suffered from schizophrenia were selected to either receive LY2140023 at 40mg twice daily, olanzapine at 15mg daily or a placebo. All volunteers stayed at the hospital before and during the phase II trial. They stopped taking any medicine they were already taking.

The study found that LY2140023 and olanzapine improved patients' symptoms significantly within one week compared to the placebo, the participants who took LY2140023 did not experience any side effects y associated with modern schizophrenia drugs, and there was no evidence of weight gain or involuntary movements or muscle stiffness.

This is certainly good news for schizophrenia patients. However, researchers cautioned about more studies needed for the efficacy, efficiency, and safety of the new drug.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating psychological condition frequently characterized by acute episodes of false beliefs that cannot be improved by reasoning (delusions) and hallucinations. Patients generally hear voices which are not there, experience diminished emotion over the long term, lack of interest, and signs and symptoms of depression. It is estimated that 24 million people suffer from schizophrenia globally.

The data on this study provide new objective evidence that mGlu2/3 receptor agonists have antipsychotic properties. They may provide a completely new therapeutic approach for treating schizophrenia and, perhaps, other neuropsychiatric disorders. This is certainly an alternative treatment to traditional schizophrenia treating drugs.

Longer-term studies are needed to confirm and extend these newly found drug benefits.

Source:

Sandeep T Patil. 2007. Activation of mGlu2/3 receptors as a new approach to treat schizophrenia: a randomized Phase 2 clinical trial. Nature Medicine Published online: 2 September 2007. URL: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm1632.html