AstraZeneca announces Seroquel trial data

AstraZeneca has presented the data from a clinical trial of Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate sustained release) at the European Congress of Psychiatry. According to the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANNS), the trial showed that Seroquel improves the symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

The 588-patient trial found users of the compound also exhibiting an increased time to psychiatric relapse when administered with the drug on a three-step dose initiation, with effective dose range met on the second day.

Furthermore, data from other trials presented at the congress in Madrid revealed that schizophrenia patients currently administered with alternative antipsychotic drugs or original formulation quetiapine could be switched to treatment with Seroquel.

Professor Rene Kahn, head of the division of neuroscience at University Medical Centre, Utrecht, said: “In these studies Seroquel sustained release formulation showed its potential as a once-daily treatment for both acute and clinically stable schizophrenia.”

He added that the compound attained the primary endpoint at doses between 400 mg/day and 800 mg/day within two days of the initiation of treatment, an advantage over the more complex dosing of the traditional formulation of quetiapine.

In October 2006, AstraZeneca submitted a regulatory filing for sustained release formulation Seroquel in the European Union under the mutual recognition procedure.