Iloperidone Saves The Day

To see a very optimistic view of Vanda's iloperidone, read an article at the Red Herring. Here's a snippet:

"Thomas Weisel analyst Donald Ellis agrees that Vanda is superior to other atypical antipsychotic drugs because of its less frequent incidence of side effects. “Iloperidone is differentiated from existing atypical antipsychotics because of a lower incidence of weight gain, diabetes, extrapyramidal symptoms (involuntary body movements), sedation and impaired cognition. We believe Vanda is well positioned for a potential acquisition by a major pharmaceutical company,” he wrote in a research note.

And with the sales of atypical antipsychotics reaching $10.5 billion in 2005, a 10 percent increase from 2004, iloperidone looks to be a great boon for Vanda. [Bank of America analyst] Maris projects that iloperidone will garner $150 million in sales for Vanda by 2010. After the successful results of this trial, Vanda will likely file for a new drug application with the FDA in 2007 and launch sales of iloperidone in 2009. “Iloperidone looks to have a very attractive safety profile,” he writes.

The "very attractive safety profile" line is used prior to the release of nearly every new medication, though the actual safety profile, as we've seen with the current lineup of atypical antipsychotics, is a different story. Maybe I'm wrong and iloperidone, despite languishing for years in development and having not a single publicly available efficacy trial, is the next big thing for schizophrenia. More on iloperidone here.