Pharmaceutical company to develop triple reuptake inhibitor antidepressants.

In the Wall Street Journal (2/9) Health Blog, Jeanne Whalen wrote that pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced Monday that “it’s partnering with the Mayo Clinic and Virginia Tech to work on an experimental class of antidepressants known as triple reuptake inhibitors, or TRIs.” These medications “target three brain chemicals believed to be involved in depression — serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.” Currently antidepressants “target just serotonin, or serotonin and norepinephrine.” According to Christer Köhler, vice president of global discovery research at AstraZeneca, “by adding dopamine to the mix,” pharmaceutical “makers hope to crack certain types of depression that typically don’t respond to” medication “treatment, including melancholic depression.”

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