The U.S. Food and Drug Administration showed a green flag for the use of antipsychotic, Abilify in children with bipolar disorder.

The drug manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and the Japanese partner Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., has already been in use from November 2002 for the acute and maintenance treatment of certain kinds of bipolar I disorder in adults and for schizophrenia in people 13 and older.

The latest studies on Abilify were carried out for a period of four weeks on children aged between 10 and 17. The study gave amazing results about the effectiveness of this drug. It was found out that Abilify has slightly an edge over the other antipsychotics in the sense that it does not have the side effects like weight gain and other metabolic disorders.

“The major problem with second-generation antipsychotic drugs is weight gain and diabetes. The younger you are, the more severe and common these side effects,” said Jeffrey Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University.

From November 2002 through December 2007, nearly 15 million prescriptions of Abilify has been written and according to the manufactures, the sales of this drug rose even further to $462 million.

Source-Medindia
SUN/L