Biological Psychiatry Study Shows Speech-Latency Vocal Biomarker Can Strengthen Drug–Placebo Separation in Schizophrenia Trials
February 26, 2026 – New research published in Biological Psychiatry and recently featured by Elsevier, reports that speech latency, an objective vocal biomarker derived from standard clinical interviews, can help enrich schizophrenia trials by identifying participants more likely to show a high placebo response. In a global Phase lll study of brilaroxazine (406 participants; 8 languages), when patients identified by this biomarker were excluded from analysis, treatment–placebo separation increased by 2 to 3 times across primary and secondary endpoints.
Trial failure in neuroscience is often driven by poor signal detection, noise, and heterogeneity. These findings underscore how objective, validated speech biomarkers can help reverse this trend, support smarter trial design, reduce heterogeneity and strengthen signal detection across global CNS studies.
Clario’s Chief Research Officer (eCOA), Mark Opler, Ph.D., MPH, was one of the study’s co-investigators.
Read the full press release in Elsevier
Read the journal article by visiting Biological Psychiatry website