This week's Science has a thought-provoking article charting how several of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies have canned their development of psychiatric drugs, citing the medications as unlikely to be profitable given the difficulties in understanding the neurobiology of mental illness.On 4 February, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it planned to pull the plug on drug discovery i
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August 4, 2010
Is Big Pharma abandoning psychiatry?
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January 20, 2010
Zebrafish Behavior Monitoring System Could Boost Drug Discovery: UBC-Harvard Research
Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Harvard University have co-developed a system that captures on video and barcodes the behavioral responses of zebrafish to chemical compounds on a large scale. The approach could dramatically speed up the discovery of new psychiatric drugs...
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6 Vote(s)
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October 17, 2009
Deconstructing the Placebo
Last month Wired, announced that Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.The article's a good read, and the basic story is true, at least in the case of psychiatric drugs. In clinical trials, people taking placebos do seem to get better more often now than in the past (paper). This is a big problem for Big Pharma, because it means that experimental new drugs ofte
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16 Vote(s)
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September 14, 2009
The fake pharmacopeia
Psychiatric drugs are an essential tool in the treatment of mental illness but the pharmaceutical industry is still one of the most ethically dubious enterprises on the planet. That's why I use spoof drug ads, because sometimes only the best will do.If you want to be part of the health care revolution, here's a selection of some of the finest drugs that money can't buy:The Onion News Network repo
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6 Vote(s)
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August 24, 2009
Mind Book Throws Spotlight On Chemical Cosh
Today leading mental health charity Mind has helped to redraw the boundaries in our understanding of psychiatric medication, with the launch of new book Psychiatric Drugs (1).
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9 Vote(s)
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June 7, 2009
US weighs approval of psychiatric drugs for kids
June 05, 2009 WASHINGTON - Three blockbuster psychiatric drugs currently approved for adults also appear to work in adolescents, though U.S. government health officials have concerns about exposing younger patients to the drugs' side effects.
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5 Vote(s)
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April 22, 2009
A New Way Of Thinking For Schizophrenia Treatment
The effectiveness of psychiatric drugs varies considerably in individuals being treated for depression or schizophrenia. These drugs act on serotonin, a neurotransmitter (chemical messenger) central to the regulation of moods. Scientists from Oxford and Belfast have discovered more about emotional processing and genetic variations that will help to inform treatment strategies.
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9 Vote(s)
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