Any News of New Bipolar Meds?
Question by Dawn: any news of new bipolar meds?
Best answer:
Answer by Scrabble Cat
I am also being treated for Bipolar Disorder and try to stay on top of any new medications I might suggest to my own doctor.
New medications do not become available very often, and when they do, they are most often old medications simply achieving FDA approval for Bipolar treatment. These are usually only medications that are already being used off label by psychiatrists such as anti-psychotics and anti-epileptics used when other approved medications have failed to be effective.
However, I have heard of one new medication, an anti-psychotic, that is now being used to treat Bipolar Disorder (though like many others, it is not actually approved for Bipolar Disorder). As far as I know, it is the only newly approved medication being used for this purpose. Fanapt is the trade name. The most complete information seems to be on wikipedia (ironically) if you’d like to look it up.
Also, I have found one site describing two separate drugs (that have not even been given official names yet) in preclinical trials. One is actually a class of medications called “substance P-blockers”. They block a neurotransmitter called (obviously) substance-P which appears to work similarly to serotonin. Only one clinical trial has been done showing possible effectiveness of one such drug that was comparable to the SSRI Paxil.
The other experimental medication is simply called ABS-103, an anti-epileptic also in preclinical trials. Based on preliminary studies it seems that it may be as effective as Depakote but with fewer side effects.
I hope this information is helpful. I’ve provided a link to the official Fanapt site (though drug companies always make their drugs sound more spectacular than they really are), as well as one to the link I found on the article concerning the new experimental medications (which also includes information on many other Bipolar medications).
Answer by Rebecca Morgan
Abilify, Geodon, and Saphris are all fairly new
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