By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.
The New York Times
Published: August 19, 2013
Fully 1 in 5 Americans take at least one psychiatric medication. Yet when it comes to mental health, we are facing a crisis in drug innovation.
Sure, we have many antidepressants, antipsychotics, hypnotic medications and the like. But their popularity masks two serious problems.
First, each of these drug classes is filled with “me too” drugs, which are essentially just copies of one another; we have six S.S.R.I. antidepressants that essentially do the same thing, and likewise for the 10 new atypical antipsychotic drugs.
Second, the available drugs leave a lot to be desired: patients with illnesses like schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder often fail to respond adequately to these medications or cannot tolerate their side effects.
The entire story is here.
