Purpose

A multitude of different versions of the same medication with different inactive ingredients are currently available. It has not been quantified how this has evolved historically. Furthermore, it is unknown whether healthcare professionals consider the inactive ingredient portion when prescribing medications to patients.

Methods

We used data mining to track the number of available formulations for the same medication over time and correlate the number of available versions in 2019 to the number of manufacturers, the years since first approval, and the number of prescriptions. A focused survey among healthcare professionals was conducted to query their consideration of the inactive ingredient portion of a medication when writing prescriptions.

Results

The number of available versions of a single medication have dramatically increased in the last 40 years. The number of available, different versions of medications are largely determined by the number of manufacturers producing this medication. Healthcare providers commonly do not consider the inactive ingredient portion when prescribing a medication.

Conclusions

A multitude of available versions of the same medications provides a potentially under-recognized opportunity to prescribe the most suitable formulation to a patient as a step towards personalized medicine and mitigate potential adverse events from inactive ingredients.

中文翻译：

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口服药物中非活性成分的历史演变和提供者意识

目的

目前，具有不同非活性成分的同一药物有多种不同版本。目前还没有量化这在历史上是如何演变的。此外，尚不清楚医疗保健专业人员在向患者开药时是否考虑非活性成分部分。

方法

我们使用数据挖掘来跟踪同一药物随时间推移的可用配方数量，并将 2019 年可用版本的数量与制造商数量、自首次批准以来的年份以及处方数量相关联。对医疗保健专业人员进行了一项重点调查，以询问他们在开处方时对药物非活性成分部分的考虑。

结果

过去 40 年来，单一药物的可用版本数量急剧增加。可用的不同版本药物的数量很大程度上取决于生产该药物的制造商的数量。医疗保健提供者在开药时通常不会考虑非活性成分部分。

结论

相同药物的多种可用版本提供了一个潜在的未被充分认识的机会，可以为患者开出最合适的配方，作为迈向个性化医疗并减轻非活性成分潜在不良事件的一步。