Lyrica vs Lamictal
Both are anticonvulsants. Here is how Lyrica and Lamictal compare on class, mechanism, dosing, approval and supply.
At a glance
Key differences
- Same class. Both Lyrica and Lamictal are anticonvulsants, so they work through the same broad mechanism. Differences between them tend to be about dosing, route, how selective they are, and side effects rather than what they target.
- How they are taken. Both are given by the oral route.
- Time on the market. Lyrica was first approved by the FDA in 2004, Lamictal in 1994. That gives Lamictal roughly 10 more years of real-world use and long-term safety data.
- Who markets them. Lyrica is marketed by Viatris; Lamictal by GlaxoSmithKline.
What each one treats
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 )
LAMICTAL is indicated for: Epilepsy—adjunctive therapy in patients aged 2 years and older: • partial-onset seizures. • primary generalized tonic-clonic (PGTC) seizures. • generalized seizures of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. ( 1.1 ) Epilepsy—monotherapy in patients aged 16 years and older: Conversion to monotherapy in patients with partial-onset seizures who are receiving treatment with carbamazepine, phenytoin, phenobarbital, primidone, or valproate as the single antiepileptic drug. ( 1.1 ) Bipolar disorder: Maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder to delay the time to occurrence of mood episodes in patients treated for acute mood episodes with standard therapy. ( 1.2 ) Limitations of Use: Treatment of acute manic or mixed episodes is not recommended. Effectiveness of LAMICTAL in the acute treatment of mood episodes has not been established. 1.1 Epilepsy Adjunctive Therapy LAMICTAL is in…
How each one works
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 …
12.1 Mechanism of Action The precise mechanism(s) by which lamotrigine exerts its anticonvulsant action are unknown. In animal models designed to detect anticonvulsant activity, lamotrigine was effective in preventing seizure spread in the maximum electroshock (MES) and pentylenetetrazol (scMet) tests, and prevented seizures in the visually and electrically evoked after-discharge (EEAD) tests for antiepileptic activity. Lamotrigine also displayed inhibitory properties in the kindling model in rats both during kindling development and in the fully kindled state. The relevance of these models to human epilepsy, however, is not known. One proposed mechanism of action of lamotrigine, the releva…
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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 10 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.