A New Treatment Paradigm: Targeting TAAR1 in Schizophrenia

TARGET AUDIENCE:
The audience for this educational initiative is psychiatrists, advanced practice psychiatric clinicians, and other mental health professionals who care for people with schizophrenia.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
Antipsychotics fail to control symptoms for approximately one-third of patients with schizophrenia. In addition, they frequently cause adverse effects that may cause patients to abandon treatment or experience long-term health consequences. Recently, promising clinical data have emerged for a novel class of drugs with an entirely new mechanism for treating schizophrenia: the TAAR1 agonists. An additional treatment option for schizophrenia could dramatically improve the prospects for patients who cannot achieve recovery with existing antipsychotics or experience safety or tolerability issues. In this supplement, John M. Kane, MD reviews the data available for TAAR1 agonists, so that if and when they are approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, clinicians will be ready to use them to optimize patients’ outcomes. Topics covered include unmet needs in schizophrenia care, the mechanism of action of TAAR1 agonists versus traditional antipsychotics, preclinical and clinical data for TAAR1 agonists, and potential uses of TAAR1 agonists if approved.
LEARNING GOAL/PURPOSE
The goal of this supplement is to enhance clinicians’ knowledge of unmet needs in schizophrenia care; the rationale for investigating the use of TAAR1 agonists to fill these needs; and the biologic, preclinical, and clinical data currently available on the use of TAAR1 agonists to treat schizophrenia.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
On completion of this activity, the learner will be better able to:
• Identify current major areas of unmet need among patients with schizophrenia
• Describe the mechanism of action by which TAAR1 agonists control schizophrenia symptoms
• Evaluate clinical data on the use of TAAR1 agonists to treat schizophrenia