News & Events - University of Virginia School of Law

Newer Antipsychotic Drugs Not Better, Swartz Says

The second generation of antipsychotic drugs, introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, are not more effective than the first generation produced decades earlier, a recent news-making study revealed. One of the study’s principal investigators, Dr. Marvin Swartz of Duke University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, pointed to the results as revealing both the consequences of imperfect drug trials led by drug makers and the need for better research on drugs’ costs and benefits, during the Law School’s 12th P. Browning Hoffman Lecture April 10, sponsored by the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy.