Next year, doctors might finally have something new to offer people who suffer from schizophrenia: a much-needed drug that can better improve their symptoms without the side effects that too often cause them to stop taking their medications.
The latest round of late-stage data on a drug in development by Karuna Therapeutics, released recently, reinforces its potential to offer desperately needed progress for a brain disorder that affects about 1% of people in the U.S.
Karuna’s news is a bit of a revival story. One component of the treatment, called xanomeline, has been around since the early 1990s, when scientists at Eli Lilly & Co. started exploring its use to treat the cognitive and behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and, later, schizophrenia.