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Polycap

Polycap is a specific five-in-one fixed dose combination polypill created by Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited of Ahmedabad, India that combines moderate levels of five different medications in a single, one-a-day pill aimed at reducing/preventing heart attacks and strokes.


Photographs of the actual Polycap capsule are available at http://cadilapharma.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Polycap-Corel12.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_Arun_Maseeh_of_Cadila_Pharmaceuticals_holding_Polycap.JPG

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Dr_Arun_Maseeh_of_Cadila_Pharmaceuticals_holding_Polycap.JPG

A prominent 2009 study found that this pill's combination of three blood pressure medications, a cholesterol reducer, and aspirin had cut the risk of heart attack and stroke in half, with no more adverse effects than taking the components separately.

Many different fixed dose combination (FDC) polypills have been proposed, and one for reducing cardiovascular risk was especially sought. While there are benefits to reducing the number of pills that patients have to take (alleviating the so-called "pill burden"), FDC polypills (like Polycap) also raise concerns that any particular mass-produced combination of drugs and/or dosages is actually optimal for relatively few patients (i.e., offering many patients too little of the medication they need, or components that they don't need at all, while exposing all to the side effects, etc.). This is often accepted by FDC proponents as a worthwhile tradeoff in exchange for the benefits of reducing pill-burden.

A hypothesis initially proposed by Wald and Law had recommended a six-drug combination to be taken by patients over age 55 at risk of cardiovascular disease events, which would include three half-dose antihypertensives drugs, aspirin, a statin, and folic acid. After further research showed no improvement in clinical outcomes for patients taking folic acid, it was omitted from Cadila Pharmaceuticals' formulation. As tested, "Polycap" combines 100 milligrams of aspirin, with simvastatin (a generic version of Zocor, the cholesterol-lowering statin; 20 mg) and low doses of three blood pressure medications, atenolol (50 mg), ramipril (5 mg) and thiazide (12.5 mg). And despite containing multiple drugs, the pill has a fairly small size which can facilitate swallowing.