Absence of Drugs Targeting Negative Symptoms to Slow Schizophrenia Treatment Market Growth

The schizophrenia market across the seven major markets of the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and Japan, is set to rise from $6.4 billion in 2015 to $7.3 billion by 2025, according to GlobalData.

The company’s latest report states that major drivers of this growth include the uptake of novel pipeline products that have been designed to satisfy unmet needs in the disease and development of long-acting injectable formulations of atypical antipsychotics in order to improve patient compliance, a notable unmet need.

However, GlobalData analyst Christos Michaelides, commented: “While schizophrenia market growth will primarily be driven by the arrival of late-stage pipeline products, such as Minerva’s MIN-101 and Intra-Cellular Therapies’ ITI-007, both of which are directed towards the treatment of negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia, these symptoms will remain a significant unmet need in the space.”

Negative symptoms are conceptualized as an absence or diminution of normal emotional responses or thought processes, and include those such as apathy or asociality. Positive symptoms, on the other hand, are described as those that healthy individuals would not experience, including the reality distortion symptoms of hallucinations and delusions, as well as disorganized thoughts and behaviors.

Michaelides continues: “[T]here is no drug that can treat the negative symptoms of schizophrenia currently available... A drug addressing this is therefore urgent."