Topic summary
Fixed-dose
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Combination drug.
Terminology
- Fixed-dose combination (FDC): A mass-produced, standardized prescription or over-the-counter medication with specific, unalterable ratios of active ingredients.
- Drug cocktail: A colloquial or historical term often used to describe customized combinations of separate pills administered together (such as early HIV treatments), though it is occasionally used interchangeably with FDCs.
- Polypill: A specialized fixed-dose combination pill that contains four or more distinct active ingredients. These are frequently used in cardiovascular medicine to simplify preventive care, often produced at a compounding pharmacy due to the specific dosage, dosage form, and modified release mechanism. Polypills can encompass four or more of any combination of approvedprescription drugs and over the counter drugs, as well as nutritional supplements and hormones, amino acids, enzymes, vitamins, and/or essential minerals.