Strong results for B-MS/Otsuka's Abilify

US drug major Bristol-Myers Squibb and Japan's Otsuka Pharmaceutical says that their co-devloped antipsychotic, Abilify (aripiprazole) demonstrated statistically-superior effectiveness to the standard of care in schizophrenia.

Data presented at the 14th European Congress of Psychiatry, held in Nice, France, show that the agent was more effective than the standard drugs olanzapine, quetiapine and risperidone, as measured by the Investigator Assessment Questionnaire total score, based on 10 different factors.

In this study, people with schizophrenia treated with Abilify experienced significantly less weight gain, improved lipid profiles, sexual function and overall quality-of-life compared to those treated with SOC antipsychotics. The firms stressed that significantly more patients in the Abilify group than the SOC arm whose symptoms were not controlled by their previous antipsychotic or who experienced tolerability issues, reported that Abilify was much better than their prior medication, but noted that no comparisons were made with any of the individual products included in the SOC category.