New York – A spike in suicide rates in the United States has cast fresh light on the need for more effective treatments for major depression, with researchers saying it is a tricky development area that has largely been abandoned by big pharmaceutical companies.
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U.S. health authorities said on Thursday that there had been a sharp rise in suicide rates across the country since the beginning of the century and called for a comprehensive approach to addressing depression. The report was issued the same week as the high-profile suicides of celebrities Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.
Reuters was not able to determine if either Bourdain or Spade were getting drug treatment.
Kate Spade’s husband Andy Spade said in a statement this week that she had suffered from depression for many years and was working closely with her doctors. A representative for Andy Spade said he had no further comment on Saturday. A representative for Bourdain could not immediately be reached for comment.
With the availability of numerous cheap generic antidepressants, many of which offer only marginal benefit, developing medicines for depression is a tough sell.
Drugmakers have 140 therapies in development targeting mental health issues, including 39 aimed at depression, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group. That compares with the industry’s work on some 1,100 experimental cancer drugs, which can command some of the highest prices.
“Psychiatry has become a disfavored area for investment,” said Harry Tracy, whose newsletter NeuroPerspective tracks developments in drug treatments for psychiatric problems. “Insurers say ‘why should we pay more for a new treatment?'”
Some say anti-depressant drugs take too long to become effective, if they are effective at all.
About half of people with depression fail to respond to current therapies, said Dr. Husseini Manji, global head of neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N>’s Janssen unit.
Developing antidepressants is risky. Patients in clinical trials often show a big placebo response, masking the efficacy of the drug being tested. In addition, once approved, antidepressants require a large sales force to reach psychiatrists as well as primary care providers.
Another impediment is the difficulty of conducting early depression research on animals that could form a basis for trials in people.
“This has been a big challenge to translate over to human clinical trials,” said Caroline Ko, project leader of NewCures, a newly formed program at Northwestern University aimed at reducing the risk of investment in treatments for depression, pain, Parkinson’s and other diseases.
J&J is the only large pharmaceutical company making a major investment in a new antidepressant, Tracy said. Smaller players include Sage Therapeutics <SAGE.O>, which expects a decision from U.S. regulators on a treatment for post-partum depression by the end of the year.
J&J’s esketamine targets treatment-resistant depression. It is similar to ketamine, which is used as an anesthetic and to relieve pain, and often abused as a recreational party drug with the street nickname Special K.
The company expects to file for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of esketamine, a rapid-acting nasal spray, this year.
“Standard antidepressants can take weeks to work. They really are not useful in a crisis situation,” said Carla Canuso, who is leading J&J’s effort testing the drug in people deemed at imminent risk for suicide, which is most commonly associated with depression.
Allergan Plc <AGN.N> is developing rapastinel, a fast-acting intravenous antidepressant the company purchased in 2015.
The drug has breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA, with clinical trial results expected in early 2019. Last month, the company acquired another depression drug from its collaborator Aptinyx.
Dr. Julie Goldstein Grumet, a behavioral health expert from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, said 122 people in the United States took their lives by suicide each day last week. Many were never even diagnosed with a mental illness.
“We’re missing opportunities to screen people for the risk of suicide,” she said.
How stupid to increase anti-depressants! Instead understand why it is happening….
America has moved away from a G-d fearing society to a person pleasure society. Before people believed in G-d and understood that He brings problems into their lives for them to deal with. With the pleasure now generation all that counts is my person pleasure and if I can not get my personal pleasure, so what is the purpose of living? So they kill themselves.
So giving them drugs is going to help?
America has forgotten G-d, so G-d forgets America.
America is a failed enterprise.
Boruch, Jerusalem
For the Jews the best anti depressing drug as well as recreational drug is the Torah and HaShem.
For the nations the 7 mitzvot Bnei Noah and HaShem. Problem solved.
Since I am the math geek here let me add a twist.
People are yelling all day that our mortality rate has not decreased and our helath care is not top notch.
But they fail to grasp the CDC data.
Mortality is on the rise because of suicides and drug epdimics. Mortality for cancer and heart disease surpasses other countries.
its a side point but worth noting
The new magnetic treatment is promising. But in general, depression should only be treated with drugs as a last resort, because the side effects can be serious, and it takes a lot of time and effort to find the right drug for each patient. In my opinion, the best solution to the mental health crisis is to provide comfortable supervised care where people with mental health issues feel safe getting help and having psychotherapy without drugs before trying drugs, and remain in the safe space while they start drug therapy if necessary.
Depression is a form of diabetes. Torah study is very important but we should also not ignore the role of diet and exercise in helping to prevent depression.
The 30% increase of the suicide rate since 1999 closely tracks the exponential rise in the Autism rate during the same time period.The research demonstrates that both conditions involve immune system disregulation and neuroinflammation. The vast majority of people who have depression do not commit suicide. It appears that a small subset of depressed individuals have particular patterns of inflammation in specific brain regions that strongly correlates with suicide. There are actually ongoing studies treating depression with anti inflammatory strategies as opposed to anti depressants. Besides drugs like steroids, there are lifestyle modifications that can treat inflammation very effectively, including diet,exercise,vitamin supplementation, and a whole host of approaches known as bio hacking. Many of the anti depressants given to treat depression have been linked to increased risk of suicide and homicide.This is likely one of the main reasons that Pharma does not want to develop new drugs – not only are they unreliable they may make matters worse.
I find the lay opinions spewed here almost amusing. The immaturity seen in these comments is shocking to me. I write this as a mental health professional with several decades of experience and ongoing training.
There are several forms of antidepressant medications. The latest hot one is the family of SSRI’s. Most of these have a negligible profile of side effects, and are also quite effective. There are spurious findings that correlate some of these with suicidality. There are alternative explanations, and it is tough to say a medication causes suicide. No one disagrees that additional research for other medications is worthwhile.
#8 – Depression is NOT a form of diabetes. #9 – Mostly fiction. Stop reading Prevention Magazine and other sources of made up information. #6 – You are unfairly scaring way too many people. Like screaming “Fire” in a crowded theater. #1 – Not too lazy to write gibberish and post on VIN.
#5 – The most rational statement on this thread. The overdoses are a different animal, the drug problem. This is not the intentional suicide that is the subject here. Current health insurance limits access to good treatment. #7 – Accurate.