About Schizophrenia and Negative Symptoms
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and debilitating type of mental illness characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self and behavior. Schizophrenia affects 20 million people worldwide. (World Health Organization).
Negative symptoms can cause individuals with schizophrenia to withdraw from society, become disinterested or unable to complete tasks or feel pleasure. Negative symptoms are characterized by five constructs: blunted affect, alogia, avolition, anhedonia, and asociality (Marder and Galderisi, 2017).
Negative symptoms are the main cause of the poor functional outcome of patients suffering from schizophrenia (Harvey et al., 2020) and may also be one of the main reasons ultrahigh risk adolescents may develop full blown schizophrenia (Gomes and Grace, 2017). There are currently no treatments approved for negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Minerva believes that research continues to emerge indicating that there is a large subgroup of patients with schizophrenia who have moderate to severe primary negative symptoms and minimal positive symptoms (Galderisi 2021) and have a low risk of worsening of positive symptoms even in the absence of antipsychotic treatments (Harrow 2013; Moilanen 2016; Murray 2016; Wils 2017; Wunderink 2013; Landolt 2016). The medical need for treatments for this subgroup of patients is large.
About Minerva Neurosciences
Minerva Neurosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: NERV) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing product candidates to treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Our goal is to transform the lives of patients with improved therapeutic options. Minerva’s portfolio of compounds includes roluperidone (MIN-101), in clinical development for negative symptoms of schizophrenia, and MIN-301 for Parkinson’s disease. For more information, please visit our website.
Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, reflect management’s expectations as of the date of this press release, and involve certain risks and uncertainties. These statements may be identified by words such as “aims,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “forecasts,” “goal,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “possible,” “potential,” “seeks,” “will” and variations of these words or similar expressions that are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the clinical development of roluperidone as monotherapy for the treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia; the potential benefits of roluperidone as monotherapy for the treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia or any other indication; the adequacy and efficacy of our clinical trials and studies with roluperidone, and the sufficiency of the data from such trials and studies to support marketing application; our interpretation of the feedback from the U.S. Food and