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Organon’s fast-dissolving, sublingual tablet asenapine has been shown to perform well in a six-week study among patients with acute schizophrenia.
In the study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, asenapine 5mg twice daily was significantly more effective than placebo in improving both positive and negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia, based on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).
This difference was seen starting at the second week of treatment. Positive symptoms include hallucinations and delusions, negative symptoms include lack of emotional expression.
“Currently available atypical antipsychotic drugs like risperidone are effective at reducing hallucinations and other positive symptoms associated with schizophrenia,” said Dr Steven Potkin of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California.
“Asenapine’s effect on negative symptoms, as seen in our trial, is an interesting finding.”
Dr Willem de Laat, executive vice-president for medical affairs at manufacturer Organon said: “These results further confirm asenapine’s benefits in schizophrenia and support our continued confidence in this agent as a potential treatment for this disorder.”
These data were previously presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual meeting and at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP).
