Healthcare Insights
Most common antipsychotic medications by prescriptions dispensed
What are antipsychotic medications?
Antipsychotics are a type of prescription drug that treat the symptom of psychosis. Psychosis is not a mental illness, but rather a collection of symptoms that affect a person’s ability to tell what is and is not real. These medications are a critical part of treating conditions that involve psychosis. Without treatment, many of these conditions are so severe that patients may require around-the-clock care within a psychiatric hospital.
Using intelligence from the Definitive Healthcare Atlas Prescription Claims dataset, we’ve ranked the top 10 most prescribed antipsychotics dispensed to U.S. patients from December 2024 through to November 2025.
| Rank | Antipsychotic drug | % of total prescriptions | Explore dataset |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quetiapine fumarate | 28.23% | Explore |
| 2 | Aripiprazole | 19.85% | Explore |
| 3 | Risperidone | 11.61% | Explore |
| 4 | Olanzapine | 11.06% | Explore |
| 5 | Cariprazine HCl | 4.70% | Explore |
| 6 | Lurasidone HCl | 4.26% | Explore |
| 7 | Paliperidone palmitate | 3.10% | Explore |
| 8 | Clozapine | 2.77% | Explore |
| 9 | Haloperidol | 2.56% | Explore |
| 10 | Brexpiprazole | 2.25% | Explore |
Fig. 1 Data is from the Definitive Healthcare Atlas Prescription Claims product for the timeframe of December 2024 to November 2025. Claims data is sourced from multiple claims clearinghouses in the United States and is updated monthly. Accessed January 2026.
What are the most common antipsychotic medications by prescriptions dispensed?
Prescription volume among the top 10 antipsychotic medications is heavily concentrated in a small number of drugs, with quetiapine fumarate and aripiprazole alone accounting for nearly half of all prescriptions.
Quetiapine leads by a wide margin at 28.23%, reflecting its broad use across multiple indications, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and off-label treatment of mood and sleep disorders. Aripiprazole follows at 19.85%, likely driven by its favorable side-effect profile relative to older atypical antipsychotics and its use as both a primary antipsychotic and an adjunctive therapy for major depressive disorder.
A second tier of widely used agents, risperidone (11.61%) and olanzapine (11.06%), together represent another substantial share of prescribing. These medications remain foundational in antipsychotic treatment due to their established efficacy, availability in generic form, and familiarity among clinicians.
Beyond these leaders, prescription volume drops off sharply.
Typical vs. Atypical antipsychotics
Typical and atypical antipsychotics differ primarily in how they work in the brain, which symptoms they target best, and what side effects they pose.
Typical antipsychotics, also known as first-generation, were developed earlier. They work mainly by blocking dopamine receptors, which can be effective for treating some symptoms of psychosis, but it may also cause other symptoms to occur as a result of interfering with normal dopamine signaling.
Atypical antipsychotics, or second-generation, have a broader mechanism of action. In addition to blocking dopamine, they also affect serotonin receptors. This generally allows atypical agents to treat certain symptoms of psychosis while also offering better coverage for the negative and mood-related symptoms associated with psychosis. However, atypical antipsychotics have their own tradeoffs. Many are associated with metabolic side effects. As a result, prescribers must often balance a patient’s movement-related risks and their metabolic concerns (along with other factors) when considering which medication to prescribe.
How providers, payors, and life sciences companies can use this data
Insight into antipsychotic prescription volumes can be highly useful across the healthcare ecosystem, but its value looks different for providers, payors, and life sciences companies, depending on how it is applied.
Healthcare providers
For healthcare providers, prescriber distribution data offers important context for clinical decision-making and benchmarking. Seeing which antipsychotics dominate overall prescribing can help clinicians assess whether their own treatment patterns align with broader practice trends or evidence-based norms.
It can also support formulary discussions, medication reviews, and quality initiatives, particularly when paired with outcomes data, adherence rates, or patient demographics.
Payors
For payors, this data is valuable for utilization management, formulary design, and cost containment strategies. Highly concentrated prescribing among a small number of agents—especially generics—signals where payors may already be achieving cost efficiency, while lower-volume branded therapies highlight areas for prior authorization, step therapy, or value-based contracting.
Life sciences companies
For life sciences companies, antipsychotic prescription data is foundational for commercial strategy and market positioning. It helps manufacturers understand competitive dynamics, identify where newer therapies are gaining traction, and more.
When layered with provider-level, site-of-care, or patient population insights, this data supports more precise targeting, message refinement, and evidence development strategies across sales, marketing, and market access teams.
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Healthcare Insights are developed with data from the Definitive Healthcare product portfolio and federal sources. Want even more insights? Start a free trial now and get access to the latest intelligence on hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers.
