Panel Discussion: Overcoming the Phase 2/3 Roadblock in Neuropsychiatric Drug Development: What Have We Learnt in 2026?

  • How late stage failures continue to stem from heterogeneous patient populations and poor endpoint sensitivity, underscoring the critical need for biomarker driven  stratification to boost Phase 2/3 success rates
  • What 2025–2026 taught us about placebo inflation, highlighted by recent schizophrenia and depression trial outcomes, and how study site variability, digital tools, and speech/physiological biomarkers may mitigate expectation bias
  • Why translational gaps persist across muscarinic, psychedelic, and neuroplasticity based mechanisms, and how emerging mechanistic and genomic biomarkers can better link target engagement with clinical effects in Phase 2/3
  • How sponsors are redesigning global Phase 2/3 execution—leveraging faster moving regions, adaptive designs, and early signal-detection: to overcome long timelines, recruitment bottlenecks, and historically low CNS trial success rates