Eisai launches new epilepsy drug

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. — Drug maker Eisai will make a new epilepsy drug available in the United States starting on Monday, the company said Thursday.

Fycompa (perampanel) will be available to patients aged 12 and older as an add-on therapy for partial-onset seizures. The drug, which is scheduled by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule III controlled substance, received Food and Drug Administration approval in October 2012. The drug's label carries a boxed warning, the strongest warning a drug can have, due to the risk of serious psychiatric and behavioral side effects.

"The availability of Fycompa gives physicians an important new adjunctive treatment option for the care of those patients whose seizures are not controlled by their current medication," Eisai Product Creation Systems president for neuroscience and general medicine Lynn Kramer said.