Antidepressant not available in US

I was reading about tianeptine and am really interested in it for it's ability to confer protection from stress induced neurodegeneration and memory problems as well as being generally neuroprotective. I have a lot of cognitive impairment from my depression plus I suffer from a lot of anxiety and don't like taking benzodiazepines. Is it safe to buy a medication from a pharmacy outside of the country? Does anyone know of a reputable pharmacy I might go to? Tianeptine isn't sold in the US - does anyone know why this is? I see papers by US authors in scientific journals describing the merits of tianeptine.


Kathy

Post Edited (Waterfaller) : 8/27/2012 6:06:27 PM (GMT-6)

How do you know what you're buying is what they really give you?

Pharmacist Oath? I don't know. I never bought out of the country. Will have to wait and see if any of the other members have.

As to why it isn't available in the US, here is one explanation. Not familiar with the journal, I found this on a Google search:

Online forum users are quick to wonder why tianeptine hasn’t reached American markets, if it seems to work as well as conventional antidepressants, apparently has fewer side effects, and has been approved in much of Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In the United States, the intricacies of international patent law have made it financially difficult for tianeptine to get FDA approval. Tianeptine is decades old, but it wasn’t until the late ‘80s and ‘90s that its antidepressant effects were discovered. Tianeptine is now off-patent, meaning that if Servier were to get the drug approved, any company could make and market the drug on their ticket. Given this, it isn’t financially worth it for Servier, or any other company, to sponsor the FDA clinical trials required for drug approval. It’s worth noting that it may be possible for tianeptine to be repatented with a different use in mind, such as irritable bowel syndrome. If this were the case, it would be lucrative for a company to sponsor its FDA application and tianeptine could be prescribed off-label for depression in the United States.

http://hypocritereader.com/13/antidepressants

Judy2 said...
As to why it isn't available in the US, here is one explanation. Not familiar with the journal, I found this on a Google search:
Online forum users are quick to wonder why tianeptine hasn’t reached American
markets, if it seems to work as well as conventional antidepressants, apparently
has fewer side effects, and has been approved in much of Europe, Latin America,
and Southeast Asia. In the United States, the intricacies of international
patent law have made it financially difficult for tianeptine to get FDA
approval. Tianeptine is decades old, but it wasn’t until the late ‘80s and ‘90s
that its antidepressant effects were discovered. Tianeptine is now off-patent,
meaning that if Servier were to get the drug approved, any company could make
and market the drug on their ticket. Given this, it isn’t financially worth it
for Servier, or any other company, to sponsor the FDA clinical trials required
for drug approval. It’s worth noting that it may be possible for tianeptine to
be repatented with a different use in mind, such as irritable]<i>. If
this were the case, it would be lucrative for a company to sponsor its FDA
application and tianeptine could be prescribed off-label for depression in the
United States.

http://hypocritereader.com/13/antidepressants

Thanks for posting that Judy. That's really frustrating. I doubt it will ever be sold here. I may try to buy it online from Canada.

Kathy