OTHER NEWS - Oct. 6, 1992

SmithKline’s Paxil Clears FDA Hurdle: A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel unanimously voted to recommend FDA approval for SmithKline Beecham’s Paxil drug for the treatment of depression. Paxil would be the third drug of its type approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression, joining Eli Lilly’s Prozac and Pfizer’s Zoloft. Paxil is a serotonin drug, a type that treats depression by speeding the transmission of electrical impulses between certain brain cells. The FDA reviewers found that Paxil doesn’t elicit adverse effects that would hinder its approval as an anti-depressant and does decrease the risk of relapse into depression when compared with a placebo. The drug’s effectiveness wasn’t clear cut, however. Of 11 studies on effectiveness, four failed to show a difference between Paxil and a placebo.