The vicissitudes of preclinical psychiatric research: Justified abandonment by big pharma?

摘要

It is a well-worn tale by now: most of the remarkable psychiatric medicinal concepts currently in use were discovered by chance. First, the use of phenothiazines for presurgical relaxation of patients led to chlorpromazine, the first blockbuster antipsychotic. Second, the inadvertent discovery that putative anti-tuberculosis agents cheered patients without benefiting their lung diseases led to antidepressants. Third, in a last-ditch effort by an about-to-be-closed laboratory at Hoffman-LaRoche, some aggressive zoo animals were injected with benzodiazepines and a taming effect was seen; this led to the anti-anxiety revolution of Librium and Valium. Serendipity, rather than scientific knowledge has led the way. Since the inception of the psycho-pharmacology revolution 60 years ago, and despite the outlay of billions of research dollars, few new psychiatric medicinal concepts have been discovered. Science has mostly fine-tuned therapeutics after they were discovered by chance.