Psychiatric Meds Still Generate Buckets of Money

The 2007 U.S. drug sales and prescriptions data have been released. According to IMS Health, psych meds did quite well in the United States last year. Highlights:

• Of all drugs, Seroquel (quetiapine) generated the fifth most money in sales. Not bad for an antipsychotic, or broad spectrum psychotropic or whatever it is marketed as these days. $3.5 billion in U.S. sales alone in 2007. Maybe AstraZeneca's investments in key opinion leaders were excellent business decisions.
• Antipsychotics generated more money in sales than did antidepressants ($13.1 billion vs $11.9 billion). If nothing else, it helps to again nail down the official paradigm shift favoring the antipsychotics as treatments for everything under the sun.
• Worry not, because antidepressants are still the most prescribed class of medications. Antipsychotics just cost a lot more, hence their generation of higher sales numbers.

The global numbers will also be interesting. I'm not sure when they are scheduled for release, but you can bet that the figures for antipsychotics will be mind-blowing.