What is "polypill"

n. medication that is a combination drug of multiple active ingredients, and that is aimed to be consumed widespread in the population, even by currently healthy individuals, as a means of preventative medicine

A polypill is a medication that is a drug product in pill form (i.e., tablet or capsule) that combines multiple active pharmaceutical ingredients. The prefix "poly" means "multiple," referring to the multiplicity of distinct drugs in a given "pill." An occasional synonym is combopill. It is commonly manufactured as a fixed-dose combination (FDC) drug product targeting treatment or prevention of chronic disease. Polypills may be aimed to be consumed by healthy people as a means of preventive medicine, and/or treating actual pathophysiological condition(s), the former typically involving lower dosages than the latter. Polypills can reduce the number of tablets or capsules (generally orally administered) that need to be taken, which in turn may facilitate handling and administration of pharmaceuticals as well as alleviate patient pill-burden. Sometimes the multiple drugs in a given polypill might all be aimed at a single underlying condition (or, group of related conditions), partly because this expands the pool of potential patients for whom a given combination of drugs/dosages might be appropriate (particularly in the case of mass-produced polypills, i.e. FDCs). The term polypill was first coined in the context of cardiovascular disease prevention, but has since gained broader acceptance, including now for combinatorial drug products that existed before the term was actually coined (as the bare term without any modifiers is now quite generic).

In addition to the noted fixed-dose types of polypills, polypills can also be custom-made for specific patients through a process called pharmacy compounding. Physicians in most jurisdictions have wide discretion to prescribe customized drug products containing unique drug-dosage combinations (and/or formulations thereof) specifically for individual patients, which certain pharmacies can then sometimes produce for such patients.