NIMH study says older antipsycotics are cheaper and as effective as 2nd-gen drugs

A US National Institutes of Health-funded project, the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE), concluded that the older, first-generation antipsychotic medication perphenazine was less expensive but no less effective than newer treatments used in the study. The authors said that the results, which were published in the December 1 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, demonstrate that older drugs still have a role to play in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Older drugs as effective and 30% cheaper

The work was carried out by the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health, and was designed as a direct comparison of older drugs with second-generation antipsychotics, which currently make up over 90% of the prescribed schizophrenic medications in the USA. The report goes on to explain that the majority of clinicians surveyed believed that newer medications are both better tolerated and more effective than older therapies, and that this "advantage" was justification for their increased cost.