Schizophrenia affects various symptom domains, including positive and negative 
symptoms, mood, and cognition. Cariprazine, a dopamine D3/D2 receptor partial 
agonist and serotonin 5-HT1A receptor partial agonist, with preferential binding 
to D3 receptors, is approved for the treatment of adult patients with 
schizophrenia (US, Europe) and mania associated with bipolar I disorder (US). 
For these investigations, data were pooled from 3 positive, 6-week, 
double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase II/III trials of cariprazine in patients 
with acute exacerbation of schizophrenia (NCT00694707, NCT01104766, 
NCT01104779); 2 trials were fixed-dose and 1 trial was flexible-dose. Post hoc 
analyses evaluated mean change from baseline to week 6 in Positive and Negative 
Syndrome Scale (PANSS) -derived symptom factors (positive symptoms, negative 
symptoms, disorganized thought, uncontrolled hostility/excitement, 
anxiety/depression) and PANSS single items for cariprazine (1.5-9.0 mg/d) versus 
placebo. P values were not adjusted for multiple comparisons. At week 6, 
statistically significant differences versus placebo were seen for cariprazine 
on all 5 PANSS factors (P < 0.01 all). Effects sizes ranged from 0.21 
(anxiety/depression) to 0.47 (disorganized thought). Dose-response analysis from 
the fixed-dose studies found significant differences for all cariprazine doses 
(1.5, 3.0, 4.5, and 6.0 mg/d) versus placebo in PANSS total score, and in 
negative symptom and disorganized thought factor scores (P < 0.001). Differences 
between cariprazine and placebo were also statistically significant on 26 of 30 
PANSS single items (P < 0.05). In these post hoc analyses, cariprazine was 
effective versus placebo in improving all 5 PANSS factor domains, suggesting 
that it may have broad-spectrum efficacy in patients with acute schizophrenia.