Lundbeck's Cipralex cleared in Switzerland

The Swiss health authorities have granted marketing approval for theantidepressant drug Cipralex (escitalopram) produced by the Danish drugmaker H Lundbeck. The company said it will launch the product in Switzerland during the second quarter of 2002.

Cipralex was approved in Sweden, its first world market, towards the end of last year and is currently undergoing the mutual recognition procedure prior to a European Union-wide roll-out (Marketletter December 17, 2001). Approvals are also pending in Canada and Australia. The new product is a successor to Lundbeck's Cipramil (citalopram), which is sold by Forest Laboratories as Celexa in the USA, and Lundbeck is generating data in a bid to show clinical superiority over the parent drug.

Citalopram is due to face generic competition in the USA in 2004, while at least nine companies have been given the go-ahead to launch their own versions of the antidepressant in the EU (Marketletter January 7).