Organon study demonstrates efficacy of Asenapine

Organon has announced the results of a new study which shows its fast-dissolving, sublingual tablet asenapine to be effective and well-tolerated in patients with schizophrenia.

The study’s findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry with the data also presented at the American Psychiatric Association’ s annual meeting and the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s.

In the study, asenapine 5mg twice-daily was demonstrated to be significantly more effective than a placebo in improving both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

Findings were drawn from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, with differences been observed in the second week of treatment.

Steven G Potkin, from the department of psychiatry and human behaviour at the University of California, illustrated that some currently available atypical antipsychotic drugs were effective in reducing the positive symptoms of schizophrenia.

However he indicated: “Asenapine’s effect on negative symptoms, as seen in our trial, is an interesting finding.”

Positive symptoms include hallucinations and delusions while negative symptoms include lack of emotional expression.

Last month, Organon signed an exclusive, worldwide licence agreement with Endotis Pharma over the development and commercialisation of several antithrombotic compounds.