Cymbalta vs Lyrica
Two of the main treatments for nerve pain and fibromyalgia, reached from completely different directions — an antidepressant and an anticonvulsant.
At a glance
Key differences
- Different classes. Cymbalta is an SNRI; Lyrica is an anticonvulsant. They act on different targets in the body.
- Time on the market. Cymbalta was first approved by the FDA in 2004, Lyrica in 2004.
- Who markets them. Cymbalta is marketed by Eli Lilly; Lyrica by Viatris.
What each one treats
An oral daily medication used to treat depression, anxiety, neuropathic pain, and fibromyalgia.
LYRICA is indicated for: • Management of neuropathic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy • Management of postherpetic neuralgia • Adjunctive therapy for the treatment of partial-onset seizures in patients 1 month of age and older • Management of fibromyalgia • Management of neuropathic pain associated with spinal cord injury LYRICA is indicated for: • Neuropathic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) ( 1 ) • Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) ( 1 ) • Adjunctive therapy for the treatment of partial-onset seizures in patients 1 month of age and older ( 1 ) • Fibromyalgia ( 1 ) • Neuropathic pain associated with spinal cord injury ( 1 )
How each one works
An oral daily medication used to treat depression, anxiety, neuropathic pain, and fibromyalgia.
12.1 Mechanism of Action LYRICA (pregabalin) binds with high affinity to the alpha 2 -delta site (an auxiliary subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels) in central nervous system tissues. Although the mechanism of action of pregabalin has not been fully elucidated, results with genetically modified mice and with compounds structurally related to pregabalin (such as gabapentin) suggest that binding to the alpha 2 -delta subunit may be involved in pregabalin's anti-nociceptive and antiseizure effects in animals. In animal models of nerve damage, pregabalin has been shown to reduce calcium-dependent release of pro-nociceptive neurotransmitters in the spinal cord, possibly by disrupting alpha …
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Which medicine is right for a given person depends on their diagnosis, other conditions, other medicines, kidney and liver function, pregnancy, and cost or reimbursement — none of which this page knows. Two drugs in the same class are not automatically interchangeable. Never start, stop or switch a prescription medicine on the basis of a web page; that decision belongs to you and your clinician or pharmacist.
How this page is built
The facts on this page are pulled directly from official U.S. FDA datasets — they are not written from memory. Each field below names the dataset it came from, so you can check it yourself.
- FDA Drug Label (openFDA) ↗ Indications, mechanism of action and pharmacologic class
- Drugs@FDA ↗ First FDA approval date and the company holding the application
- FDA Drug Shortage Database ↗ Current US supply / shortage status
Plain-English summaries and drug-class explainers are written and reviewed by Sreepriya Prasannan (MSc Digital Transformation of Life Sciences (Innopharma Education / Griffith College); MSc & BSc Botany). Data is retrieved automatically from the sources above and cross-checked with AI-assisted verification (Anthropic's Claude) — brand and generic names are matched against the exact FDA product record so that a combination product or a different formulation cannot be mistaken for the drug on this page. An editor reviews the result before publication. We describe this in full in our editorial standards and corrections policy. The FDA data on this page was last retrieved on 6 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.