Innovate UTAS pharmacy research offering hope on reducing antidepressant withdrawals

Pharmacies across Australia will soon be helping more patients successfully taper off their antidepressant medication after innovative research from UTAS. HERE’S HOW.

Natalie Cooper research project lead from UTAS and pharmacist, Helen Kruup pharmacist with Slade Pharmacy New Town, Joanne Gross Pharmaceutical Society of Australia branch president at Slade Pharmacy New Town. UTAS pharmacy research. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Pharmacies across Australia will soon be helping more patients successfully taper off their antidepressant medication, thanks to a tablet-liquidation technique developed by the University of Tasmania.

School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology lead researcher Natalie Cooper said formulations to convert eleven of Australia’s most prescribed antidepressants into liquid form would overcome the need to crush or dissolve pills, and offer consumers a safer and less traumatic path to dosage reduction.

Ms Cooper said that each formulation would undergo rigorous chemical, physical, and microbial-stability testing before eventually being made available to pharmacists nationwide in the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary and Handbook.

A lack of commercially available liquid antidepressants meant patients currently had limited dosing options to withdraw from their medications, Ms Cooper said.

“Australia does have official guidelines on how to come off antidepressant medications using a step-wise approach, but these guidelines do require doses that are difficult to achieve with our commercially available antidepressants,” Ms Cooper said.

“Many people rely on inefficient and imprecise at-home methods of crushing and dispersing tablets, to lower their doses.

“By creating easy-to-prepare, cost-effective liquid antidepressant formulations that any pharmacy can compound, we’re tackling a major barrier to antidepressant discontinuation.”

UTAS research finds better way to reduce antidepressant withdrawals. Picture: File

Tasmania branch president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia Joanne Gross said her organisation was a proud supporter of the UTAS de-prescribing project, saying it was bringing an easy-to-prepare, standardised antidepressant liquid option to the national market.

Ms Gross said helping antidepressant patients come off their medication remained an ongoing challenge for health professionals, particularly in relation to long-term users who were experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

“PSA looks forward to continuing to work with the University to make their findings accessible to all Australian pharmacists through the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary and Handbook, supporting flexible, individualised tapering regimens and improving patient outcomes,” she said.

Tasmanian general practitioner Dr Anna Seth said patients for whom antidepressant cessation was appropriate stood to benefit greatly from the UTAS research, by reducing the withdrawal symptoms that often posed major challenges to stopping medication.

“This is exciting research because existing options for gradual discontinuation of antidepressants are very limited creating a barrier for patients and the doctors who support them,” Dr Seth said.

“The cost of compounding these medications is prohibitive for many of my patients who are then stuck with either trying to crush and disperse tablets at home or stopping medications more abruptly and risking unpleasant withdrawal effects.”

Originally published as Innovate UTAS pharmacy research offering hope on reducing antidepressant withdrawals