Over-the-counter drugOver-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid prescription. In many countries, OTC drugs are selected by a regulatory agency to ensure that they contain ingredients that are safe and effective when used without a physician's care. OTC drugs are usually regulated according to their active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) rather than final products.
Medical prescriptionA prescription, often abbreviated or Rx, is a formal communication from a physician or other registered healthcare professional to a pharmacist, authorizing them to dispense a specific prescription drug for a specific patient. Historically, it was a physician's instruction to an apothecary listing the materials to be compounded into a treatmentthe symbol (a capital letter R, crossed to indicate abbreviation) comes from the first word of a medieval prescription, Latin (), that gave the list of the materials to be compounded.
New Drug ApplicationThe Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) New Drug Application (NDA) is the vehicle in the United States through which drug sponsors formally propose that the FDA approve a new pharmaceutical for sale and marketing. Some 30% or less of initial drug candidates proceed through the entire multi-year process of drug development, concluding with an approved NDA, if successful. The goals of the NDA are to provide enough information to permit FDA reviewers to establish the complete history of the candidate drug.
Eli Lilly and CompanyEli Lilly and Company is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by, and named after, Colonel Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and veteran of the American Civil War. As of 2022, Lilly is known for its clinical depression drugs Prozac (fluoxetine) (1986), Cymbalta (duloxetine) (2004), and its antipsychotic medication Zyprexa (olanzapine) (1996), although its primary revenue drivers are the diabetes drugs Humalog (insulin lispro) (1996) and Trulicity (dulaglutide) (2014).
LamotrigineLamotrigine, sold under the brand name Lamictal among others, is a medication used to treat epilepsy and stabilize mood in bipolar disorder. For epilepsy, this includes focal seizures, tonic-clonic seizures, and seizures in Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. In bipolar disorder, lamotrigine has not been shown to reliably treat acute depression; but for patients with bipolar disorder who are not currently symptomatic, it appears to be effective in reducing the risk of future episodes of depression.
AnticonvulsantAnticonvulsants (also known as antiepileptic drugs or antiseizure drugs) are a diverse group of pharmacological agents used in the treatment of epileptic seizures. Anticonvulsants are also increasingly being used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, since many seem to act as mood stabilizers, and for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Anticonvulsants suppress the excessive rapid firing of neurons during seizures. Anticonvulsants also prevent the spread of the seizure within the brain.
NovartisNovartis AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Consistently ranked in the global top five, Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the fourth largest by revenue in 2022. Novartis manufactures the drugs clozapine (Clozaril), diclofenac (Voltaren; sold to GlaxoSmithKline in 2015 deal), carbamazepine (Tegretol), valsartan (Diovan), imatinib mesylate (Gleevec/Glivec), cyclosporine (Neoral/Sandimmune), letrozole (Femara), methylphenidate (Ritalin; production ceased 2020), terbinafine (Lamisil), deferasirox (Exjade), and others.
PfizerPfizer Inc. (ˈfaɪzər ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer (1824–1906) and his cousin Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891). Pfizer develops and produces medicines and vaccines for immunology, oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology.
GSK plcGSK plc, (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc,) is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, GSK is the tenth largest pharmaceutical company and #294 on the 2022 Fortune Global 500, ranked behind other pharmaceutical companies China Resources, Sinopharm, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, AbbVie, Novartis, Bayer, and Merck Sharp & Dohme.
