Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

'Dissolving Pill' for Sz Medication

Alamo Pharmaceuticals has developed a clozapine pill that dissolves on the tongue, eliminating the need for schizophrenia patients to call attention to their medication. Developers hope that the new delivery method will help reduce some of the stigma around the disease, and in turn improve patient compliance.

Fazaclo (brand name of the pill), is not an entirely new development. There have been several attempts to find new delivery methods for schizophrenia medications, among them long-acting injections and surgically-implanted patches. All of these were created with a common goal - to improve compliance to medication treatment.

However, the main barrier to compliance has always been lack of insight, a hallmark of many brain diseases (among them schizophrenia). Although medication delivery methods cannot help insight, they may still improve compliance for some patients.

The FDA officially approved the sale of Fazaclo in February, at it will be available by 8/23/04. Users of the pill must join a registry and get regular blood tests, as depletion of white blood cells is a possible side effect for 1-2% of Fazaclo users.

To read the news article, please see "Schizophrenics may not fear new drug" by Chris Gosier (Daily Record, 8/21/04). http://www.dailyrecord.com/news/articles/news1-alamo.htm

See more detailed information about Fazaclo, available from Drugs.com website (http://www.drugs.com/fazaclo.html).

To read about some newer delivery methods for schizophrenia medications, please see Alternatives to Pills in the medications section of the schizophrenia.com website.