Posted by IsoM on September 10, 2002, at 12:46:47
In reply to Re: The hard, cold facts about Lexapro » ZyprexaNumbTongue, posted by SLS on September 10, 2002, at 7:11:17
Scott, the nice thing about making Lexapro is it didn't involve any 'development' of a new drug. It just took an already existing drug, citalopram (Celexa) & applied a relatively new technology to it - the separation of isomers of a racemic mixture. So, in theory, this in now way should slow or restrict the developments of new medications.
As far as I can tell, Forest labs do not develop new drugs so much as market those that weren't picked up by other companies. They take ones that show promise & work with those developers to fix them up for use (I'm dumbing their processes way down as I don't know all they do myself).
The inactive isomer of citaprolam should not in theory interfere with the efficiency of the active one but would only bind to certain sites causing an increase of side effects in only those who would be affected. There are many people who take Celexa with no side effects at all - I'm one. I've never noticed anything different in a negative way that I could attribute to Celexa. So presumably, Lexapro wouldn't do anything different for me. The reason that Dr. Dave doesn't believe that the r-isomer of Celexa causes interference with the efficiency of the s-isomer is that (to the best of my knowledge) inactive isomers of other meds have never interfered with the active isomers before. He would be even more aware than me of any other cases where interference resulted previously. All that has resulted from inactive forms before has been an increase of side effects. Mind you, we're still discovering new things in sciences that we never knew about before, which is why I'm still keeping an open mind.
Nice to talk with you again, by the way. I hope you're feeling a little better. I have, at last, found that my new doctor does understand narcolepsy enough to know I have it & has now prescribed Dexedrine for me. Unfortunately, both the adrafinil & modafinil (Provigil) pooped out on me. I've honestly never experienced a drug poop-out before & did NOT expect it.
poster:IsoM
thread:109458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020906/msgs/119471.html