High levels of unmet medical need and the staggering direct and indirect costs of mental health disorders – $2.5 trillion worldwide in 2010, according to the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director Thomas Insel, MD – along with the tantalizing commercial opportunity, are reenergizing the way researchers are approaching neuropsychiatric R&D, and luring some big players back into the field. What’s changed is the ability to study the genomics and brain circuitry of disorders of mood, behavior, cognition, and development, using powerful gene sequencing and functional imaging tools and taking a systems-biology approach to research.
Psychiatric disorders have fallen far behind neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or various categories of pain with respect to funding, innovation, clinical activity, and industry interest. High rates of clinical failure,...
