Amineptine

Amineptine, formerly sold under the brand name Survector among others, is an atypical antidepressant of the tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) family. It acts as a selective and mixed dopamine reuptake inhibitor and releasing agent, and to a lesser extent as a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Amineptine was developed by the French Society of Medical research in the 1960s. Introduced in France in 1978 by the pharmaceutical company Servier, amineptine soon gained a reputation for abuse due to its short-lived, but pleasant, stimulant effect experienced by some patients. (This is to be distinguished from its antidepressant effect, which appears in approximately seven days after commencing treatment.) After its release into the European market, cases of hepatotoxicity emerged, some serious. This, along with the potential for abuse, led to the suspension of the French marketing authorization for Survector in 1999. Amineptine was never approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for marketing in the United States, meaning that it is not legal to market or sell amineptine for any medical uses in the U.S. Amineptine was approved in France for severe clinical depression of endogenous origin in 1978. Warnings and precautions before taking amineptine: Severe acne due to amineptine was first reported in 1988 by various authors—Grupper, Thioly-Bensoussan, Vexiau, Fiet, Puissant, Gourmel, Teillac, Levigne, to name a few—simultaneously in the same issue of Annales de dermatologie et de vénéréologie and in the 12 March 1988 issue of The Lancet. A year later, Dr Martin-Ortega and colleagues in Barcelona, Spain reported a case of 'acneiform eruption' in a 54-year-old woman whose intake of amineptine was described as 'excessive.' One year after that, Vexiau and colleagues reported six women, one of whom never admitted to using amineptine, getting severe acne concentrated in the face, back and thorax, the severity of which varied with the dosage. Most of them were treated unsuccessfully with isotretinoin (Accutane) for about 18 months; two of the three that discontinued amineptine experienced a reduction in cutaneous symptoms, with the least affected patient going into remission.