nortomaso said:
Sazi, can you translate this into English for the rest of us? What is the purpose of the mesylate salt? Does it protect the paroxetine in the stomach so that its absorption in the small intestine is increased?
The take-home is that this is, in effect, the same compound as regular paroxetine. I was talking to an attending about this today. She said that years ago and still currently, there was a large difference in therapeutic blood levels depending on the brand of lithium prescribed. Also, various brands of generic Prozac tended to cause severe GI discomfort. What was more commonplace (and apparently we can still do this), is that you can find out by calling the pharmacy what company produced the brand of the medication, and actually write on the script for a specific (still generic) company's version of a psychotropic.
As we know, lithium has a narrow therapeutic window. In this example, she reported much greater success in achieving proper therapeutic level and drug effect from Solvay than from other companies. She would write this on the script, (must be Solvay generic) and she would get greater therapeutic effect.
I've only had a couple or few occasions where I suspected the brand of the same drug made a difference in the treatment. This was more of an issue when I was doing neurology and using much more antiepileptics.
Paxil (GSK): 30 tab of 30mg = $79.99
Pexeva (Synthon): 30 tab of 30mg = $69.99
Paroxetine (generic): 30 tab of 30mg = $71.99
The last does not specify the company making the drug on drugstore.com.
This is different from writing DAW in the box at the bottom of the script, which would of course provide you with the original brand - since this is basically another brand of the same med. i.e. Pexeva [DAW] would always get you the Synthon version.
Still, this whole thing prompted me to say, "ok. So what? Why would I specifically request the Synthon brand?" By reading the drug-rep webboards, it is apparently a marketing ploy whereby the physician might want a [paraphrase]: reliable, consistent, yet generic brand that keeps cost low and remains from the same manufacturer to avoid differences in pill or compound production.
Then again, since you can apparently ask for a specific company generic name on the script, the above point in moot. Maybe I'll float this question in the pharmacy forum to see if they've seen this.
