I wanted NSI-189 to be real so badly.

Pharma companies used to love antidepressants. Millions of people are depressed. Millions of people who aren’t depressed think they are. Sell them all a pill per day for their entire lifetime, and you’re looking at a lot of money. So they poured money into antidepressant research, culminating in 80s and 90s with the discovery of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac. Since then, research has moved into exciting new areas, like “more SSRIs”, “even more SSRIs”, “drugs that claim to be SNRIs but on closer inspection are mostly just SSRIs”, and “drugs that claim to be complicated serotonin modulators but realistically just work as SSRIs”. Some companies still go through the pantomime of inventing new supposedly-not-SSRI drugs, and some psychiatrists still go through the pantomime of pretending to be excited about them, but nobody’s heart is really in it anymore.