BELSOMRA- a new drug for insomnia

S NO	BELSOMRA
1.	NAME	BELSOMRA
2.	CATEGORY	Medical Neurology
3.	COMPANY	Merck’s
4.	INDICATION DEVELOPED FOR	Insomnia
5.	MECHANISM OF ACTION	Orexin antagonist
6.	MORE DETAILED M.O.A	Induces sleep by blocking binding of two wakefulness neuropeptide Orexin A and Orexin B to their receptor OX1R and OX2R
7.	NOVEL	yes/no
8.	STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT	Phase 3 completed and entering Phase 4
9.	US FDA APPROVAL	yes/no
10.	DATE OF APPROVAL BY FDA	August 13 2014
11.	INDICATION APPROVED FOR BY FDA	-
12.	INDIAN SCIENARIO	-
13.	ANYTHING SPECIAL WITH THIS DRUG	Instead of traditional way of inducing sleepiness, it fight against wakefulness
14.	BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED	Orexin-A and B are excitatory neuropeptide hormones that promote wakefulness by sending inhibitory signals to the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, an area of the hypothalamus with a high concentration of GABA-producing neurons.
15.	ISSUES WITH THE DRUG	·       To be cautious on next day driving ·       Sleep pattern does not resemble to that of normal physiological sleep, it favours REM sleep over NREM sleep ·       People who took this drug experienced somnolence
16.