Drug repurposing and emerging adjunctive treatments for schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a frequent disorder, which substantially impairs patients’ quality of life. Moreover, the burden of illness for patients, their families and for the society, in general, is substantial. Nevertheless, the understanding of the pathophysiology of this syndrome, concise diagnostic methods and more effective and tolerable treatments are still lacking. Thus, innovative approaches and the exploration of new territories are required.

Areas covered: An overview of repurposed drugs and emerging treatments for schizophrenia is presented, focusing on randomized, controlled trials and meta-analyses.

Expert opinion: Despite many years of drug research, several needs in the treatment of schizophrenia including the safety and tolerability, stage-dependent and personalized approaches, as well as drug delivery and sustainability have not been addressed sufficiently. Given the current failure of a number of mechanistically new drugs, repurposed compounds may serve as alternative and/or adjunctive agents for schizophrenic patients and for treatment refractory patients in particular. Anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g., acetylsalicylic acid, celecoxib and minocycline), as well as N-acetylcysteine, a precursor of the major antioxidant glutathione, hormones (e.g., estrogen, raloxifene and oxytocin), glutamatergic (e.g., glycine and d-serine) and nicotinergic compounds, ‘nutraceuticals’ (e.g., ω-3 fatty acids) and cannabidiol, an endocannabinoidmodulator, represent promising agents in this field.

Keywords:

• antipsychotics
• emerging drugs
• new mechanisms
• quality of life
• repurposed drugs
• schizophrenia
• treatment resistance

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the editing of this article by Ms. U. Schmid.

Declaration of interest

The authors have received intramural funding from CIMH. F Markus Leweke is a shareholder of curantis UG (ltd.) and received honoraria from Alexza, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merz, Servierand Takeda, as a speaker and/or consultant. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Notes

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