Reason Roundup

Ketamine-Based Antidepressant Nasal Spray Gets FDA Greenlight: Reason Roundup

Plus: Trump backtracks on Syria and the NSA promotes its cellphone charging services.

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(BSIP/Newscom)

BSIP/Newscom

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just approved a depression treatment derived from ketamine. A surgical anaesthetic turned party drug, ketamine has been enjoying a comeback this decade as an off-label treatment for clinically depressed patients who don't respond to other therapies.

Esketamine, a product recently approved by the FDA, is the first antidepressant "in decades to work in a completely new way in the brain," reports the Washington Post. "Older antidepressants target the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine. Esketamine affects the receptor for a different brain chemical called glutamate." More:

The spray acts within hours, rather than weeks or months as is typical for current antidepressants, and could offer a lifeline to about 5 million people in the United States with major depressive disorder who haven't been helped by current treatments. That accounts for about one in three people with depression. […] Esketamine must be administered under medical supervision and can only be used in a certified doctor's office or clinic, according to the conditions of the FDA approval. It is to be taken with an oral antidepressant.

Studies of ketamine-derived antidepressant treatments have been going on now for more than two decades, with the first study published in 2000. "Several studies now provide evidence of ketamine hydrochloride's ability to produce rapid and robust antidepressant effects in patients with mood and anxiety disorders that were previously resistant to treatment," noted an array of scientists in JAMA Psychiatry back in 2017.

An FDA advisory committee voted in February to recommend approval of Esketamine, with only two members of the committee voting no despite having more mixed evidence than with many previous antidepressants.

QUICK HITS

  • The NSA is getting a little blatant, no?

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  • Protecting and serving. The feds will look into last year's killing of Stephon Clark by Sacramento police officers Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, "who fired on Stephon Clark 20 times after mistaking his cellphone for a gun. Clark was struck at least seven times and died at the scene, later determined to be his grandmother's backyard," notes the Los Angeles Times. The local district attorney's office announced on Saturday that it would not file charges.
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