Posted by stargazer on January 31, 2007, at 1:26:56
In reply to Re: Are we in a psychiatric drug development reses, posted by shadowplayers721 on January 31, 2007, at 0:51:26
A friend of mine told me today she knows someone who buys patents for older medications and then hangs onto them because they eventually are coming back into popularity as the "newer, more improved" meds fail to live up to their advertised promises.
This happened with the MAO's...Marplan was discontinued due to "lack of market share" just as the SSRI's were taking off. I was supposed to just stop a drug that was working great(Marplan) switch to a new improved drug (Prozac) and live happily ever after. Well, the newer drugs pooped out, and Marplan returned again but was not the same formula and nver worked the same.
So before the older drugs are buried forever, we should give the newer drugs more than a few years to prove their worth. I have not had good luck with many of the newer AD's and as I can see here, MAO's continue to offer good results even with their SE profile. But they actually work for difficult cases of depression, they don't just make you an emotionless zombie, like so many of the "Super AD's" that tout all kinds of promises but seem to fall short in many ways.
Time will tell where the pendelum will swing with AD's but in my opinion, there are too many drugs and not enough studies to prove anything about efficacy until at least 5 years has elapsed.
I see the greatest hope in biological testing and identifying physiological and neurological deficiencies, rather than the shotgun approach that exists today.
poster:stargazer
thread:728180
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070125/msgs/728330.html