Most Commonly Prescribed Antidepressants

The following list contains the top 20 antidepressants by prescription volume for 2017, the most recent available data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The drugs listed below account for nearly 39 million prescriptions, including refills. Trazadone HCL, a generic tetracyclic antidepressant used to treat anxiety and depression, ranked first with over 12 million prescriptions. With almost 9 million total prescriptions reported in 2017, Citalopram HBR was the second most highly-prescribed antidepressant in the United States.

Generically manufactured drugs were the most frequently represented, accounting for 65 percent of the top 20. Both Pfizer and Otsuka America Pharmaceutical appeared twice in the top 20.

Most Commonly Prescribed Antidepressants

Rank	Product (Brand Name)	Generic Drug Name	Manufacturer / Packaging Company	# of Prescriptions (Including Refills)
1	TRAZODONE HCL	Trazodone Hcl	Generic	12,027,353
2	CITALOPRAM HBR	Citalopram Hydrobromide	Generic	8,904,541
3	FLUOXETINE HCL	Fluoxetine Hcl	Edgemont Pharmaceuticals LLC	6,192,841
4	MIRTAZAPINE	Mirtazapine	Generic	6,060,609
5	AMITRIPTYLINE HCL	Amitriptyline Hcl	Generic	3,196,255
6	NORTRIPTYLINE HCL	Nortriptyline Hcl	Generic	1,079,849
7	TRINTELLIX	Vortioxetine Hydrobromide	Takeda Pharmaceuticals America Inc	273,962
8	FLUVOXAMINE MALEATE	Fluvoxamine Maleate	Generic	242,063
9	VIIBRYD	Vilazodone Hcl	Forest Laboratories Inc	198,389
10	DESVENLAFAXINE SUCCINATE ER	Desvenlafaxine Succinate	Pfizer Inc	192,229
11	IMIPRAMINE HCL	Imipramine Hcl	Generic	161,058
12	ABILIFY MAINTENA	Aripiprazole	Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc	105,862
13	CLOMIPRAMINE HCL	Clomipramine Hcl	Generic	91,020
14	PRISTIQ	Desvenlafaxine Succinate	Pfizer Inc	76,818
15	FETZIMA	Levomilnacipran Hcl	Allergan Inc	50,540
16	DESIPRAMINE HCL	Desipramine Hcl	Generic	40,354
17	PAROXETINE ER	Paroxetine Hcl	Generic	32,793
18	NEFAZODONE HCL	Nefazodone Hcl	Generic	19,360
19	ABILIFY	Aripiprazole	Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc	14,329
20	FLUVOXAMINE MALEATE ER	Fluvoxamine Maleate	Generic	9,346
21	PAROXETINE CR	Paroxetine Hcl	Generic	8,923

Fig 1. Data from Definitive Healthcare based on Drug Market Analytics from the Physicians Database. Medicare data is from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Part D Prescriber Public Use File (PUF). Calendar Year data is projected to be released each fall by the CMS. The most recent available data is from calendar year 2017.