I've been on Treximet for years without realizing it. Even when it was called Trexima and even before FDA approved it, I was loading on it every time the migraine attack hit.
Treximet is expected to be available in U.S. pharmacies by mid-May, 2008. I've been taking it for years. Inconsistency? Not at all. Even without an ability to time-travel (one looses it as one grows older, as you know) it was made possible by combining good old Imitrex and even gooder and older Naproxen.
There goes the mystery... Or does it? Let's check the facts the good people of GlaxoSmithKline and POZEN Inc. laid out for us.
"Treximet contains 85 mg sumatriptan, formulated with RT Technology(TM), and 500 mg naproxen sodium. Sumatriptan is the active ingredient in Imitrex(R) Tablets, available in 25 mg, 50 mg and 100 mg strengths. In clinical trials, Treximet provided a significantly greater percentage of patients migraine pain relief at two hours compared to sumatriptan 85 mg or naproxen sodium 500 mg alone. In addition, Treximet provided more patients sustained migraine pain relief from two to 24 hours compared to the individual components."
The above basically says that either Imitrex OR Naproxen alone don't work as well as Imitrex AND Naproxen taken together. That's has been known for a while (ask your doctor).
So, why mix two in the same pill when you can get a prescription for both and get the same result, you ask.
The only answer one can think is that GlaxoSmithKline is not too keen on loosing all those profits from the sale of Imitrex come November 2008 on the account of Sumatriptan going generic. Naproxen (Aleve) has had this status for longer than there has been recorded history, it seems.
By combining the two, GlaxoSmithKline and POZEN can still sell brand-name drug that's sufficiently different (an extra ingredient and the dosage) from your ran-of-the-mill generic Sumatriptans. Sufficiently different to charge the premium for the brand-name alone.
Not to put down GSK, P. and Company but seriously... We've been paying sometimes up to $30 a pop for those Imitrex pills. We've been holding our collective breaths for GImitrex to get here so we could actually have money on something else besides Migraine Abortives. Now they going to introduce "the latest and the greatest", premium-priced drug that one has got to have.
And people are going to buy into that, and doctors are going to start prescribing it, and no one would know any better.
Of course, the ones who've read this article will have the option of saving at least 2/3 of the cost on the migraine abortives. As this Fall rolls in, change your Imitrex prescription to the generic Sumatriptans and Naproxen and you'll have you own hand-rolled generic Treximet.
As for the people who haven't read it, well, you should have :P .
Related articles:
FDA approves of butch names, not so sure of new drugs
Generic Imitrex coming out sooner than expected
War on Generic Drugs
Thursday
Time Traveling Treximet Trip
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