Posted by SLS on May 22, 2013, at 5:56:06
In reply to Re: Experimental AD Moves Closer To Approval, posted by poser938 on May 21, 2013, at 22:14:38
> I was reading about an idea for a change in the way the Med system is set up. Instead of only approving drugs that are meant to be used for a certain condition, we should also make meds that target a certain possibly therapeutic area in the brain/body, and then give the doctors more freedom to come up with a very unique way to treat health problems.
I would love to see this happen. I have always been an advocate of this sort of thing. That way, there can be a more rational treatment using polypharmacy with a reduction in side effects. Ritanserin is a drug that comes to mind. It would have made a great augmenter of antidepressants, but had no indication as monotherapy. Each treatment regime can be customized to fit a person's unique biology and symptomatology. This will be particularly useful once biomarkers are established and routinely tested for. This really isn't rocket science. What is rocket science is to figure out how to give an incentive to pharmaceutical companies to develop and market drugs that have no other purpose than to be used as augmenters of other drugs or as a biological probe. There are precedents, though. For example, Lamictal and Neurontin were both developed to be augmentaters of other antiepileptic drugs (AED).
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1044014
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130501/msgs/1044082.html