Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14616

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Dawdy P.
Antipsychotics Aren't Anti-Depressants
Furious Seasons 2008 Nov 10
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2008/11/antipsychotics_arent_antidepressants.html

Full text:

I saw the Abilify for depression TV ad again over the weekend and I continue to be concerned about how Bristol-Myers Squibb is very craftily making the drug, an atypical antipsychotic, sound as if it’s an anti-depressant. Nowhere in the TV is it mentioned that the drug is an antipsychotic, at least not in what I’ve caught on-air.

I’ve written about the ad previously here and have also written about how the drug’s clinical trials for depression show a greater chance for a patient to experience akathisia than to have his or her depression improved.

On the Abilify for depression website, which viewers are directed to, the drug is described thus:

“If an antidepressant alone isn’t enough, maybe ABILIFY can help. ABILIFY is the first medication approved by the FDA for add-on treatment to antidepressants for adults with MDD. In clinical studies, when ABILIFY was added to an antidepressant treatment, many people experienced significant improvement of their depressive symptoms.
“If you’re currently on antidepressant therapy and are wondering if adding ABILIFY could help you achieve additional symptom relief, ask your healthcare professional if ABILIFY could be right for you.”

The site also includes text of the black box warning for anti-depressants.

It’s only when the website details some of the warnings for atypical antipsychotics that there’s even a hint that the drug is an antipsychotic:

“Elderly people with psychosis related to dementia (for example, an inability to perform daily activities as a result of increased memory loss), treated with antipsychotic medicines including ABILIFY, are at an increased risk of death compared to placebo.”
That’s it. Not much of a clue of what kind of drug potential consumers are dealing with—certainly not enough for them to make informed decisions in my opinion—and one they’d have to work pretty hard to find.

It’s interesting to me that BMS is, in its advertising for Abilify for depression, now ignoring the fact that the drug is an antipsychotic when in other TV commercials for the drug (those would be the bipolar disorder ones targeted at women) it mentions that the drug is an antipsychotic. Why the difference now?

Regardless of the company’s motivation, antipsychotics as a class have a host of problems associated with their use: diabetes, metabolic syndrome and heart problems to name a few. The drugs, including Abilify, are subject to black box warnings for diabetes and early deaths among seniors. That sort of information should be included prominently in the TV ad and the drug should be identified as an antipsychotic. That’s my opinion.

I’m going to let the FDA know of my concerns.