US study suggests abuse potential for Cephalon's Provigil

Data from a small clinical study suggests that US drugmaker Cephalon's $988.0-million-a-year wakefulness drug Provigil (modafinil) could have  abuse potential. Published in the Journal of the American Medical  Association on March 17, the pilot study found that Provigil increases  levels of dopamine in the nucleus acumbens, a region of the brain  involved in reward and addiction. Nora Volkow, lead author of the JAMA  investigation, said that, "considering the increasing use of modafinil,  these results highlight the need for heightened awareness of potential  abuse and dependence." In the USA, the agent is a Schedule 4 drug,  which ranks it just above certain cough medicines in terms of  addictiveness. The findings come amid reports that it is increasingly  being used as a cognitive enhancer - to boost mental performance in  healthy individuals rather than to treat its approved indications.  Provigil loses US patent exclusivity in October 2011. A longer-acting  version, Nuvigil (armodafinil), is due to hit the market in the third  quarter.