Instead, it was an effective treatment for narcolepsy, a disorder marked by excessive daytime sleepiness.
The drug is approved only to treat the fatigue caused by the sleep disorder narcolepsy.
Previous work on modafinil has been limited to its effects on sleeping disorders like narcolepsy.
One may be narcolepsy, those irresistible sleep attacks that can hit multiple times a day.
Even when the details of credit default swaps and high yield bonds lead to fits of sudden-onset narcolepsy!
FORBES: "New Money For Old Rope" - Wall Street Protestors Recycling Old Rhetoric
By 2002, some analysts said 80% or more of Provigil sales were for treating indications other than narcolepsy.
"In a word, it's a great medication, " says Jed Black, a doctor at Stanford University's Center for Narcolepsy.
He said narcolepsy was linked to a loss of a particular type of brain cell called a hypocretin neuron.
Traditional treatments for hypersomnia, including stimulants such as Provigil, have proven to be effective sometimes with conditions like narcolepsy.
Cephalon has a fantastic drug in Provigil, which is already a successful narcolepsy drug and will soon treat other illnesses.
Ten months after it was introduced, 25% of narcolepsy patients in the country, more than 31, 000 people, were taking the drug.
Erica1234 worried that the rejection could make it uneconomical for Jazz to keep selling Xyrem for narcolepsy at the current price.
Apparently, many investors were expecting Cephalon's wonder drug, brought to market last February as a narcolepsy treatment, to treat ADHD as well.
And while only 125, 000 people are being treated for narcolepsy in the U.S., between 5 million and 7 million people have ADHD.
The drug has already proven remarkably effective as a treatment for narcolepsy.
Narcolepsy is a brain disorder characterised by sleep attacks and abnormal eye movement which affects up to one in a thousand people.
In the future, it might even be possible to prevent narcolepsy developing.
The drug is used clinically to treat the debilitating sleep disorder, narcolepsy.
In humans narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder that destroys the orexin neurons.
FORBES: Can A Safer Ambien Make Billions? Merck Aims To Find Out
One such medicine is Xyrem, a narcolepsy drug sold by tiny Orphan Medical (nasdaq: ORPH - news - people ).
Yet, despite these other, potentially lucrative markets, Cephalon is prohibited from marketing the drug for any illness besides narcolepsy, the only approved indication.
The case involved a former sales representative who worked for what is now Jazz Pharmaceuticals and marketed a drug for a form of narcolepsy.
The research suggests that in some narcolepsy patients the immune system produces antibodies which inflict damage on the brain tissues, and trigger symptoms of narcolepsy.
He said around 30, 000 people in the UK suffer from narcolepsy.
But it quickly became more than a narcolepsy medication, as doctors used it to treat side effects from other medicines and other types of excessive sleepiness.
Englander is also interested in Cephalon (nasdaq: CEPH - news - people ), whose formulation Provigal has been approved for use in treating narcolepsy.
First quarter results were driven by the strong performance of narcolepsy product Xyrem, as well as contribution from the expanded product portfolio resulting from the Azur Pharma merger.
In October 2002, Bank of America's King estimated that 17% or less of Provigil prescriptions went to patients suffering from narcolepsy--and that number has dropped further since then.
He points out that of 521 patients who took the drug in a safety study, 2 had forms of sleep paralysis, which can be a symptom of narcolepsy.
FORBES: Can A Safer Ambien Make Billions? Merck Aims To Find Out
But Provigil has become much more than a narcolepsy medication.
应用推荐