Until recently, the sleeping pills delivered a type of sleep that didn't mimic the natural healthy sleep properly. More precisely, the sleep induced by them lacked sufficient amounts of REM sleep - that phase of the sleeping during which people dream. As a result, people suffering from insomnia and using sleeping pills get their sleep but nevertheless they wake up tired and feeling unwell. This is why out of the 20-30% of the population suffering from insomnia only 10% of them currently use medication.

All this might change as a Swiss company has developed a completely new type of drug that not only induces sleep, but also increases the dream phase. The drug blocks the orexin system, a neuropeptide hormone discovered in 1998, which is associated with narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder that causes people to fall asleep several times a day and to have paralyzing attacks.

Rats given the drug slept soundly and measurements of muscle tone and brain activity revealed an increase in the dream phase of sleep. Other tests also suggested that the pill causes less harm to memory than usual sleeping pills. "Rats given the drug slept soundly and performed better in maze tests the following day than rats given conventional sleeping medications", says the press release of the Society of Chemical Industry.

It is also interesting that the orexin system is also associated with feeding and addiction. Because of this, experts hope that a drug which effectively targets the orexin system could also find application in treatments for obesity and addiction.

"Overweight is associated with obesity, and orexin is thought to be involved in feeding regulation," says Shahrad Taheri, a lecturer in medicine at the University of Bristol and one of the first people to experiment on orexin. "A beneficial effect of blocking the orexin system could be that the person would eat less." Taheri said the fact that narcoleptics are resistant to amphetamine addiction also suggests a further application in preventing addiction.

If all the tests go well the company says the drug could be marketed by 2012. Unlike older medicines, it has shown no sign of being addictive or of losing its effect over time. Other companies also attempted to develop a drug targeting the orexin system but failed to reach the clinical trials phase.