A generic drug is a pharmaceutical drug that contains the same chemical substance as a drug that was originally protected by chemical patents. Generic drugs are allowed for sale after the patents on the original drugs expire. Because the active chemical substance is the same, the medical profile of generics is equivalent in performance compared to their performance at the time when they were patented drugs. A generic drug has the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) as the original, but it may differ in some characteristics such as the manufacturing process, formulation, excipients, color, taste, and packaging.
Bupropion, sold under the brand name Wellbutrin among others, is an atypical antidepressant primarily used to treat major depressive disorder and to support smoking cessation. It is also popular as an add-on medication in the cases of "incomplete response" to the first-line selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant. Bupropion has several features that distinguish it from other antidepressants: it does not usually cause sexual dysfunction, it is not associated with weight gain and sleepiness, and it is more effective than SSRIs at improving symptoms of hypersomnia and fatigue. Bupropion, particularly the immediate release formulation, carries a higher risk of seizure than many other antidepressants, hence caution is recommended in patients with a history of seizure disorder.
Sumatriptan, sold under the brand name Imitrex among others, is a medication used to treat migraine headaches and cluster headaches. It is taken orally, intranasally, or by subcutaneous injection. Therapeutic effects generally occur within three hours.
In pharmacology, bioavailability is a subcategory of absorption and is the fraction (%) of an administered drug that reaches the systemic circulation.
Esomeprazole, sold under the brand name Nexium [or Neksium] among others, is a medication which reduces stomach acid. It is used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, and Zollinger–Ellison syndrome. Its effectiveness is similar to that of other proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). It is taken by mouth or injection into a vein.
Meloxicam, sold under the brand name Mobic among others, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammation in rheumatic diseases and osteoarthritis. It is used by mouth or by injection into a vein. It is recommended that it be used for as short a period as possible and at a low dose.
Triamterene is a potassium-sparing diuretic often used in combination with thiazide diuretics for the treatment of high blood pressure or swelling. The combination with hydrochlorothiazide, is known as hydrochlorothiazide/triamterene.
Armodafinil (trade name Nuvigil) is the enantiopure compound of the eugeroic modafinil (Provigil). It consists of only the (R)-(−)-enantiomer of the racemic modafinil. Armodafinil is produced by the pharmaceutical company Cephalon Inc. and was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2007. In 2016, the FDA granted Mylan rights for the first generic version of Cephalon's Nuvigil to be marketed in the U.S.
Trospium chloride is a muscarinic antagonist used to treat overactive bladder. It has side effects typical of this class of drugs, namely dry mouth, stomach upset, and constipation; these side effects cause problems with people taking their medicine as directed. However it doesn't cause central nervous system side effects like some other muscarinic antagonists. It is in pregnancy category C and is excreted in breast milk.
Amcinonide is a topical glucocorticoid used to treat itching, redness and swelling associated with several dermatologic conditions such as atopic dermatitis and allergic contact dermatitis. Amcinonide can also be classified as a multi-functional small molecule corticosteroid, which has been approved by the FDA and is currently marketed as an ointment, lotion, or cream. It acts as both a transcription factor for responses to glucocorticoids and modulator for other transcription factors while also regulating phospholipase A2 activity.
Pharmacokinetics, sometimes abbreviated as PK, is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to describing how the body affects a specific substance after administration. The substances of interest include any chemical xenobiotic such as pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, food additives, cosmetics, etc. It attempts to analyze chemical metabolism and to discover the fate of a chemical from the moment that it is administered up to the point at which it is completely eliminated from the body. Pharmacokinetics is based on mathematical modeling that places great emphasis on the relationship between drug plasma concentration and the time elapsed since the drug's administration. Pharmacokinetics is the study of how an organism affects the drug, whereas pharmacodynamics (PD) is the study of how the drug affects the organism. Both together influence dosing, benefit, and adverse effects, as seen in PK/PD models.
Cmin is a term used in pharmacokinetics for the minimum blood plasma concentration reached by a drug during a dosing interval, which is the time interval between administration of two doses. This definition is slightly different from Ctrough, the concentration immediately prior to administration of the next dose. Cmin is the opposite of Cmax, the maximum concentration that the drug reaches. Cmin must be above certain thresholds, such as the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), to achieve a therapeutic effect.
Cmax is the maximum serum concentration that a drug achieves in a specified compartment or test area of the body after the drug has been administered and before the administration of a second dose. It is a standard measurement in pharmacokinetics.
In the field of pharmacokinetics, the area under the curve (AUC) is the definite integral of the concentration of a drug in blood plasma as a function of time. In practice, the drug concentration is measured at certain discrete points in time and the trapezoidal rule is used to estimate AUC. In pharmacology, the area under the plot of plasma concentration of a drug versus time after dosage gives insight into the extent of exposure to a drug and its clearance rate from the body.
An in-vitro in-vivo correlation (IVIVC) has been defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as "a predictive mathematical model describing the relationship between an in-vitro property of a dosage form and an in-vivo response".
Hydroxybupropion, or 6-hydroxybupropion, is the major active metabolite of the antidepressant and smoking cessation drug bupropion. It is formed from bupropion by the liver enzyme CYP2B6 during first-pass metabolism. With oral bupropion treatment, hydroxybupropion is present in plasma at area under the curve concentrations that are as many as 16–20 times greater than those of bupropion itself, demonstrating extensive conversion of bupropion into hydroxybupropion in humans. As such, hydroxybupropion is likely to play a very important role in the effects of oral bupropion, which could accurately be thought of as functioning largely as a prodrug to hydroxybupropion. Other metabolites of bupropion besides hydroxybupropion include threohydrobupropion and erythrohydrobupropion.
Gabapentinoids, also known as α2δ ligands, are a class of drugs that are derivatives of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) which block α2δ subunit-containing voltage-dependent calcium channels (VDCCs). This site has been referred to as the gabapentin receptor, as it is the target of the drugs gabapentin and pregabalin.
Eluxadoline, sold under the brand names Viberzi and Truberzi, is a medication taken by mouth for the treatment of diarrhea and abdominal pain in individuals with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D). It was approved for use in the United States in 2015. The drug originated from Janssen Pharmaceutica and was developed by Actavis.
R7 is a small-molecule flavonoid and orally active, potent, and selective agonist of the tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) – the main signaling receptor for the neurotrophin brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) – which is under development for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It is a structural modification and prodrug of tropoflavin (7,8-DHF) with improved potency and pharmacokinetics, namely oral bioavailability and duration.
Non-biological Complex Drugs (NBCDs) are medical compounds that cannot be defined as small molecular, fully identifiable drugs with active pharmaceutical ingredients. They are highly complex and cannot be defined as biologicals as they are not derived from living materials. NBCDs are synthetic complex compounds and they contain non-homomolecular, closely related molecular structures with often nanoparticular properties. This is, for instance, the case with the iron sucrose and its similars. But also with other drug products, e.g. polypeptides (glatiramoids), swelling polymers, liposomes as the NBCD class is growing. Hence and due to their complexity and specific composition mix, such colloidal iron carbohydrate drugs cannot be fully identified, characterized, quantitated and/or described by physiochemical means to define their pharmaceutical properties. Therefore, contradictory to the generic paradigm pathway, relying on a full pharmaceutical identity and sameness in vitro evaluation exercise, they need additional evaluation with a reference product to assess comparability e.g. in tissue targeting in the body. This requires an appropriate, yet to be defined and be harmonized regulatory approach for these new class of medicinal products. The profile and the performance of NBCDs is defined by the multi-step manufacturing process, which is laborious, difficult to control and not disclosed by intellectual property. Minimal changes in for instance the starting materials or the process conditions might result in significant clinical differences affecting therapeutic effects or safety.
