2025 Neuropsychiatric Drug Development Summit in boSTOn: Synapcell report and highlights
Top highlights you shouldn’t miss from NDDS 2025 - From Julien Volle, PhD & Hugo Monchal, MSc
In Brief
The 8th Neuropsychiatric Drug Development Summit united over 150 leaders across discovery, clinical, and regulatory fields to drive innovation in mental health therapeutics.
2025 marked continued progress in precision psychiatry and neuroplastogen research, aiming to enhance neurotransmission and neuroplasticity.
Despite advances, key challenges such as heterogeneity, translatability, and placebo effects persist in the field.
Experts from major pharma companies including BMS, AbbVie, J&J, Biogen, and Lundbeck shared insights and strategies for next-generation treatments.
The event reaffirmed its reputation as a flagship, high-impact forum for shaping the future of neuropsychiatric drug development.
Synapcell's focus – Highlights from the 8th Neuropsychiatric Drug Development Summit
For too long, we’ve relied on classic behavioral tests like the Forced Swim Test, which often fail to predict how a treatment will work in patients. Back-translation offers a much more promising path. The idea is to start with the patient—identifying meaningful clinical endpoints first—and then use those at the preclinical stage.
How EEG Bridges the Gap Between Preclinical and Clinical Research
EEG is emerging as a fantastic tool to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical data. It can be used to measure brain activity in both animal models and people, giving us a “common language”. Sleep analysis using EEG is a prime example, offering a highly translational metric.
The Xanomeline Breakthrough: Renewed Hope for Neuropsychiatric Treatments
The recent success of xanomeline (active compound in KarXT/Cobenfy) has generated huge excitement in the field. It validates M1/M4 muscarinic agonists as a highly promising target for neuropsychiatric disorders.
High Placebo Responses in Neuropsychiatry Highlight the Need for Objective Biomarkers
The placebo effect is a massive hurdle in neuropsychiatry, far more so than in other medical fields. Just the act of enrolling in a trial—receiving attention, care, and hope—creates a powerful “behavioral engagement” that can lead to a high placebo response. This makes it incredibly difficult to detect a true drug effect and highlights why we desperately need objective, biological measures that aren’t so easily swayed.