Cipralex approved for OCD in Europe

Danish drugmaker H Lundbeck's Cipralex (escitalopram) has been approved in Europe for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, based on two pivotal studies demonstrating that the antidepressant is effective and well-tolerated with the added benefit of encouraging rates of remission and relapse prevention in OCD patients.

The chronic, highly-debilitating disorder is characterized by recurrent, distressing thoughts and impulses (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions) and is the 10th leading cause of disability of all medical conditions in the industrialized world. One pivotal study demonstrated that treatment with Cipralex provided significant symptom relief, improvement in social disability and good tolerability in what was described in the study as a very large cohort of OCD patients.