He has received grant support from the Byoutaitaisyakenkyukai Fellowship (Fellowship of Astellas Foundation of Research on Metabolic Disorders) and Eli Lilly Fellowship for Clinical Psychopharmacology. Dr Kane has been a consultant to Astra-Zeneca, Janssen, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Screening Library in vitro Dainippon Sumitomo/Sepracor/Sunovion, Johnson & Johnson, Otsuka, Vanda, Proteus, Takeda, Targacept, Intracellular Therapies, Merck, Lundbeck, Novartis Roche, Rules Based Medicine, Sunovion and has received

honoraria for lectures Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical from Otsuka, Eli Lilly, Esai, Boehringer-lngelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Janssen. He is a shareholder of MedAvante. He has received grant support from The National Institute of Mental Health. Contributor Information Christoph U. Correll, The Zucker Hillside Hospital, Psychiatry Research, North Shore – Long Island Jewish Health Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical System, Glen Oaks, New York, USA; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA; The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA; Hofstra North Shore LU School of Medicine, Hempstead, New York, USA. Taishiro Kishimoto, The Zucker

Hillside Hospital, Psychiatry Research, North ïhore – Long Island Jewish Health System, Glen Oaks, New York, USA. John M. Kane, The Zucker Hillside Hospital, Psychiatry Research, North Shore – Long Island Jewish Health Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical System, Glen Oaks, New York, USA; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA; The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA; Hofstra North Shore LU School of Medicine, Hempstead, New York, USA.
Drugs provide therapeutic benefits, ie, curing a disease, slowing its evolution, or alleviating its symptoms, but drugs also carry the risks Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), which can span from frequent and minor symptoms, such as nausea or headache, to rare but severe events, such as anaphylaxis, liver failure, or cancer. This dual aspect of therapeutic interventions is seen beyond pharmacology, for example in surgery with the risk of complications such as hemorrhages or infections, and even in psychotherapy, as psychotherapeutic interventions Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical sometimes induce aggravation of psychiatric symptoms.

The review of the benefits and the risks next associated with a drug is called benefit:risk assessment (BRA), or benefit-risk balance, or benefitrisk ratio evaluation. BRA is basically an evaluation of two dimensions. The dimension of benefits is measured primarily in terms of therapeutic efficacy, ie, the successful treatment of the condition lor which the drug is indicated. There are other types of benefits, such as improvement of quality of life or pharmacoeconomic aspects, that are of interest in a period where the costs of medicine are closely scrutinized. The dimension of risks includes the safety profile observed in the form of the sum of all ADRs, but also includes the potential risk of unobserved ADRs anticipated on the basis of the mechanism of action.