J&J gets a fresh OK for es­ke­t­a­mine, but is it re­al­ly the game-chang­er for de­pres­sion Trump keeps tweet­ing about?

Backed by an en­thu­si­as­tic set of tweets from Pres­i­dent Trump and a land­mark OK for de­pres­sion, J&J scooped up a new ap­proval from the FDA for Spra­va­to to­day. But this lat­est ad­vance will like­ly bring fresh scruti­ny to a drug that’s spurred some se­ri­ous ques­tions about the da­ta, as well as the price.

First, the ap­proval.

Reg­u­la­tors stamped their OK on the use of Spra­va­to — de­vel­oped as es­ke­t­a­mine, a nasal spray ver­sion of the par­ty drug Spe­cial K or ke­t­a­mine — for pa­tients suf­fer­ing from ma­jor de­pres­sive dis­or­der with acute sui­ci­dal ideation or be­hav­ior.

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