for educational and safety purposes
Every compound in the sci-wiki that affects serotonin 1a signaling; the ones you can source are floated to the front, then the reference-only entries. Tap any for the full entry, mechanism, and outlets.
0 sourced · 2 reference
Gepirone spent more than two decades in regulatory purgatory before it ever reached a pharmacy shelf, and its story is really about how brutal the FDA approval bar can be even for a drug that eventually worked. Fabre-Kramer Pharmaceuticals (with Organon as an early partner) submitted gepirone for depression in the late 1990s and got rejected in 1999, then again after resubmission in 2001, again in 2003 to 2004, and a fourth time in 2007, each rejection hinging on inconsistent trial results even as some studies showed real separation from placebo. The company kept the compound alive through a formal dispute appeal granted in 2016, and the FDA finally approved gepirone extended-release as Exxua for major depressive disorder in September 2023, an almost 25-year odyssey from first submission to market. It is less a lost drug than a drug that got found again, after nearly disappearing for good.
Tandospirone is a case of a drug that succeeded, just never where most of the archive's audience would notice; the azapirone was approved and marketed in Japan in 1996 as Sediel for generalized anxiety disorder, and later in China in 2004, where it remains in clinical use today for anxiety and, off-label, mood and psychotic-adjunct indications. It never sought FDA approval and stayed almost entirely off the radar in the US and Europe, overshadowed first by benzodiazepines and later by SSRIs. Its main pharmacological claim to fame is being one of the most selective 5-HT1A partial agonists among the azapirones, with comparatively little dopamine D2 or off-target receptor activity compared to relatives like buspirone.