Searching for Solutions

HHS announced a $100M pilot funding opportunity to prevent, test for, treat and cure Hepatitis C (HCV) in individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) and/or Serious Mental Illness (SMI). This program is particularly designed to support communities severely affected by homelessness and to gain insights on effective ways to identify patients, complete treatment, cure infections, and reduce reinfection by Hepatitis C (a liver disease caused by the Hepatitis C virus).

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the results of the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which shows how people living in the United States reported their experiences with mental health conditions, substance use and pursuit of treatment.  This year marks the first year since 2020 in which there are at least four years of comparable data for key NSDUH outcomes to enable reporting of trends.

The Clozapine in Practice toolkit has recently been updated to reflect the discontinuation of the REMS and to describe current information on monitoring guidelines. A special thanks to lead author Jonathan Leung and co-authors Robin Hieber, Jenna Stearns, and Greg Deardorff for their work to update this important toolkit.

The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee has recommended easing routine blood count monitoring for patients on clozapine, citing new data that show that the risk for severe neutropenia and agranulocytosis declines significantly after the first year of treatment. Under the updated guidelines, monitoring for patients without a history of neutropenia can be reduced to once every 12 weeks after the first year, and to once annually after 2 years. In addition, absolute neutrophil count (ANC) will now be the sole parameter used for hematologic monitoring, replacing the previous requirement to also measure white blood cell count. The revised recommendations are supported by a joint expert statement from the European Clozapine Task Force, published this year, which called for changes to the monitoring protocol due to the very low incidence of late-onset agranulocytosis.

AAPP member Steve Saklad co-authored the study that highlights key considerations for optimizing the use of aripiprazole monohydrate LAIs in clinical practice to enhance treatment outcomes in patients with schizophrenia and BP-I. Funding was provided by funding by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Europe Ltd & H. Lundbeck A/S.