Vortioxetine (code name Lu AA21004) is an experimental drug currently under development by Lundbeck and Takeda for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Phase III clinical development is nearly finished and submission of marketing authorization for the treatment of MDD is planned during the second half of 2012, both in the United States and Canada and in Europe.

In May 2011, Lundbeck presented the results of four phase III trials on vortioxetine at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. A significant effect was shown in two of the studies (one for active treatment using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), the second as a maintenance treatment), vortioxetine failed to prove superiority over placebo in a third (again using the HAM-D) and the fourth was nullified by an exceptionally high placebo response (according to the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS)).

In July 2011, Lundbeck published the results of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial with venlafaxine as an active reference. It was found to be superior to placebo in treating MDD while having fewer side effects than venlafaxine. Similarly, in May 2012, Lundbeck published the results of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial with duloxetine evaluating vortioxetine in elderly depressed patients, and it was found superior to placebo, with fewer side effects than duloxetine.

Olivier Ameisen (born June 25, 1953) is a French-American cardiologist. He was appointed visiting professor of medicine at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in 2008 based on his work on the mechanisms and treatment of addiction. He had been professor of medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and an attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital for fifteen years, when he opened a cardiology practice in Manhattan in 1994.

Ameisen suffered from severe alcoholism. He reports that he faithfully followed every step that his doctors or therapists proposed. He attended Alcoholics Anonymous (5,000 meetings over several years)and went to detoxification and rehabilitation programs in the US.[source?] Even after stays as long as three months, he would relapse the day he left rehabilitation, although his counselors had told him he would do well.[source?] The reason for these relapses were overwhelming craving and anxiety.[source?] Anticraving medications proved ineffective at any dose (naltrexone, acamprosate, topiramate). Also ineffective was baclofen at the low-dose it is standardly prescribed at (30 mg/d)). Ultimately he returned to Paris.