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New drugs and the NHS: square pegs and a round hole

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

David Taylor*
Affiliation:
Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust, Maudsley Hospital Denmark Hill London SE5 8AZ Taylor
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Drug development in psychiatry has famously been something of a stop–start process. First, there were no truly effective psychotherapeutic agents, then, in the 1950s, phenothiazines, monoamine oxidase inhibitors and tricyclics all appeared in the space of a few years. Then, virtually nothing: no substantial developments for 25 years. In the mid–1980s the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors appeared, heralding a new era in psychopharmacology. Then, in 1990 clozapine was re-introduced, to be followed by other atypical antipsychotics and by drugs such as donepezil and acamprosate for entirely new indications. In addition, research into antidepressant therapy has produced new agents with varied modes of action and new strategies for the treatment of refractory depression.

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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

References

Hogman, G. (1996) Is Cost a Factor? London: National Schizophrenia Fellowship.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. (1997) Establishing the cost effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs. British Journal of Psychiatry, 171, 486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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