How might one discover what inactive ingredients are used in a generic version of a medication? I understand it may vary by manufacturer, but so far, I haven’t found one that lists its inactive ingredients (unlike the original manufacturers who have their ingredients listed.)
I’m hoping there’s some sort of website, or even protocol for finding out.
I honestly don’t think this is a medical question, since I’m merely asking what’s in the medicines, rather than doing anything with them.
Which medicine?
Who makes the generic?
Specifics are needed because there’s no generic answer to your question.
I assume you’re talking about prescription drugs, since over-the-counter drugs are required to list inactive ingredients. As far as I know, most original manufacturers of prescription drugs don’t list the inactive ingredients either. If there’s some specific medication you’d like to know about, some information might be available, but it will require some highly individual poking around.
I just looked at the label on a generic Rx drug I have. It lists the manufacturer, Taro Pharmaceuticals. Their site has information pages for all the drugs that they make. Mine isn’t on it, which is weird, but I chose another at random. That page has a link to the following PDF:
http://www.tarousa.com/media/oMedia/Norpip%20INS79692-0305-1F.pdf
which includes the following information:
If you don’t have the manufacturer’s name, I’m sure your pharmacist can supply it. If you can’t find this information online, I’ll bet your pharmacist has access to a similiar info sheet.
The info sheets given to pharmacists and doctors usually do have this information, though I don’t actually know under what circumstances its required. You might be able to find the info sheets under the “healthcare professionals” sections of the generic manufacturer’s websites.
There are a lot of manufacturers, but they often have a prefix on the drug name to help tell them apart.
Drugs with the prefix “apo” are made by Apotex. Ratiopharm uses the prefix “ratio”, Sandoz has’SAN" (and older products might have “SAB” for those made by Sabex, which is now Sandoz Canada). I think Teva uses the “teva-” prefix, but I’m not sure. It might depend on the pharmacy, and sometimes they come up with their own “brand” name such as Sandoz’s supeudol (oxycodone).