Author: McKinley Corbley / Source: Good News Network
For the first time in decades, the FDA has approved a new treatment for depression – and it has the potential to offer relief to millions of patients who have exhausted all other options.
The treatment is a nasal spray called esketemine, which is being marketed under the brand name Spravato.
The spray will be prescribed alongside an oral antidepressant to adults who have developed treatment-resistant depression.Most antidepressants on the market can take weeks, even months to take effect on a patient’s depressive symptoms. Additionally, these oral antidepressants often have little to no effect on a patient’s depression.
Spravato, on the other hand, is designed to relieve depressive symptoms within a matter of hours. That being said, the drug has received some controversy because it is a chemical variant of ketamine, an anesthetic which has historically been abused for recreational purposes in club scenes and party situations.
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It is for this reason that the spray can only be administered by health care professionals in a supervised clinical environment. It is also expected to be covered under most insurance plans.
“There has been a long-standing need for additional effective treatments for treatment-resistant depression, a serious and life-threatening condition,” said Tiffany Farchione, acting director of the Division of Psychiatry Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
“Controlled clinical trials that studied the safety and efficacy of this drug, along with careful review through the FDA’s drug approval process including a robust discussion with our external advisory committees, were important to our…
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