Last January, Pfizer announced that they were going terminate their neuroscience programmes. The news came as a shock. Why is a major pharmaceutical company abandoning a field of tremendous unmet medical need? Does this mean there is little hope for innovation in neuroscience?

We are convinced this is not the case. Although Pfizer is a major player in many fields of medicine, it is no longer a leader in neuroscience. Pfizer laid off 300 employees – about 0.3% of its total worldwide staff – illustrating that neuroscience was already not a major priority at Pfizer. Although the Pfizer news obviously made the (bad) headlines, we see many innovations in neurology and psychiatry that make us optimistic about the future.

Neuroscience has historically been a challenging field for drug discovery, due to the enormous complexity of the human brain, and the difficulty in precisely and objectively measuring changes in things such as cognition or mental health. But those challenges haven't prevented companies moving forward and providing solutions for patients. A few recent success stories illustrate this. Neurocrine Biosciences brought a drug to the market last year for patients suffering from tardive dyskinesia, a debilitating disorder that results in involuntary repetitive body movements. Sage Therapeutics, meanwhile, had successful clinical studies with different compounds in major depression and in postpartum depression. 

Those success stories provide hope and support for the field, but obviously many more challenges lie ahead. One of the major battlefields is Alzheimer's disease, for which attempts to find a cure have resulted in many high-profile failures. Pfizer also had set-backs here, which probably played a role in the recent decision. But even in this historical graveyard, not everybody has buried their programmes. Although the search for a cure for Alzheimer’s is characterized by a history of failure, one of the major targets remains the amyloid beta protein. Many companies have learned from the past and optimized the programmes by fine-tuning the specific form of the protein to hit and by treating patients earlier in the disease course. The major players here are Biogen, Roche, Eli Lilly, Eisai, Amgen and Astra-Zeneca & Co. Some hopeful data have been generated and time will tell if this is the right strategy. But, even beyond the amyloid beta hypothesis, there is hope: other strategies are emerging such as those for targeting the tau protein or tackling neuroinflammation.

So, unlike Pfizer, the Candriam biotech strategy continues to see both the need, and opportunities, to remain involved in this exciting field of drug development.

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