My new book in German is now available: “Psychopharmaka absetzen? Warum, wann und wie?” (English “Stopping psychotropic drugs? Why, when and how?). The book is not a simple invitation to stop taking psychotropic drugs, but a critical examination of the topic.
An interview for DasGehirn.Info on our understanding of psychopharmacology and its further development, about humanism and the political responsibility of psychiatry.
My lecture on “Hot Topic: Psychopharmaka”, held in Mainz on March 15th, 2019, as part of the teaching event “Psychiatrie Update 2019”, was videotaped.
A Finnish registry study examined the risk of rehospitalization or death in almost 9000 patients with the first episode of schizophrenia over an observation period of 20 years.
The Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on July 16, 2018, published its opinion on cariprazine as part of its „benefit assessment“. It concludes that there is an “indication” that cariprazine has a “non-quantifiable added benefit” in the group of patients with schizophrenia with predominant negative symptoms.
Recordati launched the new antipsychotic cariprazine in Germany in Mid-April. The benefit assessment by the G-BA has therefore started.
A new publication in the prestigious Lancet Psychiatry seems to provide new evidence for the benefits of long-term antipsychotic maintenance treatment in schizophrenia (Hui et al., Lancet Psychiatry 2018). On closer inspection, however, the paper confuses more than it provides new insights.
The interesting new antipsychotic compound cariprazine was recently approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Its launch in Germany will be a new touchstone for the German Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG).