NEW YORK — A drug for major depressive disorder worked better than placebo, according to results of a late-stage clinical trial announced Thursday.

U.S. drug maker Forest Labs and French drug maker Pierre Fabre Medicament said that while the overall difference between patients treated with levomilnacipran and those treated with the placebo was not statistically significant, the drug consistently demonstrated improvement relative to the placebo over the course of the phase-3 trial.

The companies said the results differed from the findings of a previous 563-patient phase-2 study of the drug, which showed statistically significant improvement over placebo.