"I Can't Sleep": Insomnia and other sleep disorders are wreaking havoc on our health and taxing the economy

More than 82 million Americans-nearly 40% of the teen and adult population-suffer from insomnia, meaning they routinely have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Scientists have been amassing evidence that sleep deprivation is a hazardous state. Insomnia has been fingered as a major risk factor for depression, alcoholism, and obesity. What's more, all this tossing and turning is putting a damper on the economy. Sleep deprivation costs $45 billion a year in lost productivity, health-care bills, and expenses related to traffic accidents-rivaling the impact of depression or stroke. To the world's growth-starved pharmaceutical companies, sleep deprivation spells opportunity. The drug industry has barely dipped into this pool. The total market for prescription sleep aids is a skimpy $2 billion a year, mostly spent on a single blockbuster, Ambien, from Paris-based Sanofi-Synthelabo. When it was launched in 1993, it was hailed as a breakthrough because it promoted sleep with only a minor risk of hangovers and other side effects. As sales took off, at least a half-dozen companies began developing novel sleep aids, which will begin to hit the market in 2004. Some exploit entirely new discoveries about how and why we sleep. And all of them claim to improve on Ambien's powers. Drugmakers will make sure that the sleep-deprived hear their message.