New Antipsychotic in Clinical Study for Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/roche-schizophrenia-ms-drugs-move-to-final-stages-of-clincial-testing.html
"RG1678, a so-called glycine reuptake inhibitor, was effective in reducing the “negative symptoms” of schizophrenia, Roche said Dec. 6. These include a loss of motivation and interest in social activities, isolation and difficulty finding pleasure in everyday life, the company said. Current treatments for the disease mostly address the positive symptoms for the disease, which include hallucinations and delusions, Roche said."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909564/
"A number of pharmaceutical companies have been studying the novel therapeutic drugs that block GlyT-1 and thereby raise synaptic glycine levels in the brain [5-7]. The GlyT-1 inhibitor sarcosine (N-methyl glycine) was shown to be effective in the treatment of schizophrenia [13-15]. These clinical studies using sarcosine have stimulated the development of the selective GlyT-1 inhibitors because the uptake of sarcosine into the brain is not good. November 10, 2009, Roche reported the results from a 320 patient phase II proof-of-concept study with it’s investigational GlyT-1 inhibitor RG1678. The study showed that the compound improved both the negative symptoms and the personal and social functioning of patients with schizophrenia reaching statistical significance on primary and secondary endpoints. The analysis of this double blind phase II study showed that RG1678 has a robust and clinically meaningful effect in patients with schizophrenia. RG1678 was given as an add-on treatment to patients who were stable on antipsychotic therapy and suffered mainly from negative or disorganized thought symptoms. The compound was well tolerated at all doses tested"