Donepezil 5 mg, 10 mg, 23 mg Suppliers & Bulk Manufacturers

Available Forms: Tablets

Available Strengths: 5 mg, 10 mg, 23 mg

Reference Brands: Aricept (USA/EU), Adlarity (USA)

Category: Neurology

Donepezil is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. It works by increasing levels of acetylcholine in the brain, which helps improve cognition, memory, and overall daily functioning in patients with cognitive decline.

Product Description:

Donepezil is a reversible, centrally selective acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and the most prescribed symptomatic treatment for Alzheimer's disease. By slowing the breakdown of acetylcholine it partially offsets the loss of cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain. The benefit is modest and symptomatic: a small improvement or stabilisation of cognition and daily function over months, without altering the underlying disease.

A half-life of about seventy hours allows once-daily dosing, usually at night, with an increase from 5 mg to 10 mg after four to six weeks. The 23 mg sustained-release tablet offers a marginal additional benefit in moderate to severe disease at the cost of considerably more nausea and vomiting. Cholinergic adverse effects dominate — gastrointestinal upset, vivid dreams, muscle cramps — and vagotonic effects cause bradycardia and syncope, which matters in a frail population prone to falls. Caution is needed with conduction disease and with beta-blockers.

Sourcing notes. Long generic and priced as a commodity. Orally disintegrating tablets carry significant volume in care settings where swallowing is difficult, and are a separate product for registration purposes. The 23 mg tablet is a modified-release formulation needing its own bioequivalence data, and is not simply a stronger tablet. Transdermal donepezil exists in some markets as a separate registration.