Technically an "active control", though the patients appear to be selected to have been SSRI-resistant: > The open-label trial had the additional criteria of T

Technically an "active control", though the patients appear to be selected to have been SSRI-resistant: > The open-label trial had the additional criteria of TRD, as defined by no improvement despite multiple courses of antidepressant medication (mean = 4.6 ± 2.6 past medications; range, 2–11) If i'm reading the study properly (disclaimer: I may not be) then the patients in the open-label trial had already failed an average of 4.6 typical antidepressants. So it's unlikely that they'd be responding to a starter dose of another SSRI (10mg escitalopram, though some were on 20mg perhaps by body weight)