My adult son has had schizophrenia since he was a teenager. Currently, he is taking 175 mgs of clozapine a day and is happy on it. Before he took this dose of clozapine, he was on a larger dose of Clozaril and had side effects.
Are these medications the same? And are they FDA-approved?
Also, how could I find out more about these medications?Answered by:David Kahn
Clozapine is the generic name for Clozaril, one of the brands under which it is sold. They are the same. Clazpine is FDA approved for schizophrenia, and for some patients it is the most effective medication they have ever taken for this condition.
To find out more about it, especially its safety, go to the FDA's webpage on this drug: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/InfoSheets/patient/clozapinePIS.htm.
To learn more about it in general, Novartis, the manufacturer of the brand name Clozaril, has this brochure on the web:
http://www.clozaril.com/hcp/tools/pdf/patient_brochure.pdf
David Kahn, M.D.
Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs, Department of Psychiatry
David A. Kahn, M.D.
Dr. Kahn is Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs at Columbia University Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital.
He received his B.A. from Haverford College in 1975, completed medical school and internship in medicine at Columbia, and was resident and chief resident in psychiatry at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He then received an NIMH extramural research fellowship at the Psychiatric Institute, where he worked in the area o...
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