Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Generic Trileptal (Oxcarbazepine) Approved

The FDA just approved a generic Trileptal, an anticonvulsant related to the mood stabilizer, Tegretol (carbamazepine), and sometimes used to treat bipolar disorder. It is thought to have fewer problems with liver toxicity than Tegretol.

See the FDA announcement for more details. Three companies were approved to make the new generic.

5 comments:

NeoNurseChic said...

Takes forever to get these meds into generics. Trileptal seems like it's been around forever - even though I'm sure in reality it hasn't been that long. What I do know is that it must've been around longer than I've had my headaches, because that seemed like an "old" antiseizure compared to topamax, neurontin, lamictal, zonegran, lyrica, etc. Trileptal and tegretol are two of the antiseizures that I've never tried...I think I've tried almost all of the rest of them!

Glad to hear that this has been approved for generic, though - wish generics were approved a lot sooner!

Rach said...

Roy, you had said something on a podcast a little while back (i think when Dr. Mark had joined you as a guest) - something to the effect of "Canada approves generic drugs faster/sooner than the States". Can you comment on this? I know nothing about patent law here in the great white North, and even less about your patent laws... So I'm interested to hear whether you have patients that come to canada to get their scripts filled because it's cheaper?

Dragonfly said...

While R&D is necessary by Big Pharma (otherwise we would have no new medicine), equivalent cheaper generics are fantastic, both for the patient, and to spur Pharma to develop new drugs (not just new formulations mind you). Good for those in the majority world as well (go the Doha declaration!)

Dragonfly

Anonymous said...

mm, but we don't have access to certain drugs here that have fda approval in the states but are not approved for use here. one reason that generics are approved faster is to make it cheaper for the govt to pay for everyone who is covered.(which isn't everyone to be sure). another reason that drugs are cheaper here has to do with the fact that the companies save big bucks by not advertising in cdn media, BUT with the current exchange rate who would want to come here and buy our drugs?

NeoNurseChic said...

And in the states we don't have access to drugs that are approved in other countries! I take domperidone (motilium), which lost its FDA approval in the US some time ago. (I don't remember the year...) The only other med that speeds up gastric emptying is reglan, which works by messing with dopamine (forgive my lingo at the moment), and is not tolerated by many people with various neurologic conditions, myself included. So I have to get my domperidone from Canada, which actually is more expensive than the rest of my meds since I do have good insurance here (and pay through the nose for it!).

Another drug that is available elsewhere and not in the US is sansert (methysergide) which is amusingly still taught about in some nursing/medical curricula as though it is available in the US. You can get it from compounding pharmacist, but for the most part it must be obtained from elsewhere.

There are others, but those are 2 quick examples I can come up with...