Long-term help for insomniacs: New generation of sleep aids

With several new drugs due out over the next few years, physicians hope for better outcomes for their patients who can't sleep.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Jan. 31, 2005.

Over the next year, sleep experts predict the pharmacological treatment of insomnia will change significantly because of the approval of new agents not limited to short-term use as well as alterations to the formulations of older drugs.

"The old dogma of you can only use sleeping pills for four weeks is starting to be questioned," said Robert Vorona, MD, assistant professor in the division of sleep medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.

The first of the new generation of non-benzodiazepines, Lunesta (eszopiclone), was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2004. Unlike its predecessors, this sleep drug is approved without the recommendation that use be limited to less than two weeks, and physicians are likely to hear a lot about it in the coming months.

Sepracor Inc., Lunesta's manufacturer, is expected to launch the medication this spring with a combined direct-to-consumer and direct-to-physician campaign budget of more than $60 million. Additionally, more than 1,200 drug representatives will be sent out to promote the drug to primary care physicians.

But this won't be happening in a vacuum. Physicians will also be hearing more about insomnia and insomnia medications in general because pharmaceutical business analysts expect this market sector to experience big changes in the next months and beyond.

"The insomnia marketplace will see vast expansion over the next decade," according to Decision Resources Inc., an international pharmaceutical consulting firm, in its insomnia report published in August.