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