The fact is that neuro drugs have been among the fastest-growing sector in the whole drug industry. Plenty of effective blockbusters in the anti-depressant, anti-psychosis, anti-epileptic and pain fields. In the AD area of course things are not as rosy, but some drugs have still done well despite their mediocre efficacy. The MS drugs may not be perfect, but they are certainly much better than nothing and are very profitable.
Now these drugs are mostly pharma drugs, but there are still some smaller companies making a decent play in this area - CEPH with Provigil, and still to be (hopefully) approved, SEPR and NBIX with good-looking sleep drugs, likely NTII/FRX with memantine for AD and maybe diabetic neuropathy, NBIX and NRGN with CRF depression drugs, IPIC/PFE with Pagoclone for panic disorder, SEPR again for depression with its sibutramine metabolite and for anxiety with its Zopiclone metabolite. Lots of others that I'm sure Harry could cite.
I'm not saying that a drug like memantine is an AD cure or anything like it, but it certainly looks like it significantly improves symptoms to some limited degree. So am I supposed to not invest in NTII/FRX because memantine is not a cure? If a drug is likely to show enough efficacy to get approved and make some decent sales, that's enough in my mind for its sponsor to be of investment interest to me.
I do grant you that neuro drugs are in general very hard, but that's in fact something of a double edged sword - once you do get approval, competition is that much further away.
Peter |
