Symbicort
An inhaled combination medication used for the maintenance and relief of asthma and COPD symptoms.
Patient leaflets for Budesonide/formoterol
The package leaflet is the official guide for patients that comes with every medicine. These links go to the regulators that publish it.
- UKUnited Kingdom: Search MHRA ProductsPatient information leaflets and SmPCs for UK-licensed products.
- USUnited States: Search DailyMedFDA-approved labels, including patient and medication guides.
Leaflets differ between brands and countries; always read the one that comes with your own medicine. This is regulatory information, not medical advice.
What Symbicort is used for
SYMBICORT is a combination product containing a corticosteroid and a long-acting beta 2 -adrenergic agonist indicated for: • Treatment of asthma in patients 6 years of age and older. ( 1.1 ) • Maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction and reducing exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) including chronic bronchitis and/or emphysema. ( 1.2 ) Important limitations: • Not indicated for the relief of acute bronchospasm. ( 1.1 , 1.2 ) 1.1 Treatment of Asthma SYMBICORT is indicated for the treatment of asthma in patients 6 years of age and older. SYMBICORT should be used for patients not adequately controlled on a long-term asthma-control medication such as an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) or whose disease warrants initiation of treatment with both an inhaled corticosteroid and long-acting beta2-adrenergic agonist (LABA). Important Limitations of Use: • S…
How it works
12.1 Mechanism of Action SYMBICORT SYMBICORT contains both budesonide and formoterol; therefore, the mechanisms of action described below for the individual components apply to SYMBICORT. These drugs represent two classes of medications (a synthetic corticosteroid and a long-acting selective beta 2 -adrenoceptor agonist) that have different effects on clinical, physiological, and inflammatory indices of COPD and asthma. Budesonide Budesonide is an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid that exhibits potent glucocorticoid activity and weak mineralocorticoid activity. In standard in vitro and animal models, budesonide has approximately a 200-fold higher affinity for the glucocorticoid receptor and …
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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 6 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.