The U.S. Food and Drug Administration [has] approved a new kind of drug to treat schizophrenia, a breakthrough after 70 years of incremental innovation that appears to avoid side effects that cause many patients to stop taking their medication. The new drug, Bristol Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy, targets a different area of the brain than traditional antipsychotic drugs to relieve symptoms like delusions without causing patients to gain weight, fall asleep, and experience involuntary muscle jerking.
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[T]he arrival of Cobenfy offers a new tool for treating schizophrenia — a disease with profound societal consequences, including homelessness and encounters with police — beyond a class of drugs that [have] been prescribed for decades.
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“This drug takes the first new approach to schizophrenia treatment in decades,” Tiffany Farchione, director of FDA’s division of psychiatry, said in a statement.
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Unlike other antipsychotics that treat schizophrenia, the agency approved Cobenfy without a “black box” warning on the regulatory labelfor a greater risk of death in elderly patients who have psychosis related to dementia. Bristol Myers Squibb is exploring Cobenfy for Alzheimer’s-related psychosis, which has no approved treatment, among other conditions.
