Abstract
Sleeper diseases comprise a broad spectrum of increasingly recognized conditions with various degrees of neuropsychiatric involvement. Many of these conditions are now clearly defined, earning them increasing acceptance as real disorders that can and should be addressed by pharmacotherapy.
Several of these emerging sleeper diseases share key properties that make them highly interesting for the pharmaceutical industry:
- They are well defined and "real" beyond any reasonable doubt, although their etiology might be unknown or scientists' understanding of them might be highly incomplete.
- They affect a considerable number of otherwise healthy individuals in ways that significantly compromise their quality of life, social functioning, and professional accomplishments.
- They respond to treatment with currently available medications (or at least some of their constituent aspects do to a limited degree), and novel drugs (frequently based on genetic insights that reveal possible targets) are being investigated on the basis of scientifically defendable working hypotheses.
In this report, five syndromes the author believes will develop into significant pharmaceutical markets through 2015 have been evaluated.
