Nexium
An oral daily medication used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease and reduce stomach acid.
Where Esomeprazole is approved
All regulators →Of the three regulators tracked here, the first to approve Esomeprazole was the US, on 20 Feb 2001. It is approved in 3 of the 3 regulators tracked here.
From the regulators' own registers: FDA Drugs@FDA, the EMA medicines list and Health Canada's Notice of Compliance database. Dates are the first listed approval of a product containing only this substance; combination products and nationally authorised EU medicines are not counted.
What health systems spend on Esomeprazole
All medicines →From NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis (Open Government Licence v3.0) and CMS State Drug Utilization Data. Both are gross amounts: neither system publishes its discounts or rebates per drug. Products combining several substances are not counted here.
How Esomeprazole works
All drug targets →- Potassium-transporting ATPase inhibitor InhibitorTarget: Potassium-transporting ATPase✓ In ChEMBL and the Guide to Pharmacology
- Helicobacter pylori infectious diseasePhase 3
- SepsisPhase 3
- Zollinger-Ellison syndromePhase 3
- Chronic gastritisPhase 3
- Duodenal ulcerPhase 3
- DyspepsiaPhase 3
- EsophagitisPhase 3
- Gastric ulcerPhase 3
- GastritisPhase 3
- OsteoarthritisPhase 3
Mechanisms and diseases from ChEMBL via the Open Targets Platform (release 26.09), ChEMBL record CHEMBL1201320, CC BY-SA 3.0. Targets checked against the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (2026.3), ligand 5488, CC BY-SA 4.0. Trial phases are not approvals: approved uses are shown from the regulators' own records where we hold them.
Patient leaflets for Esomeprazole
The package leaflet is the official guide for patients that comes with every medicine. These links go to the regulators that publish it.
- IEIreland: 37 products on the HPRA listEach product record links to the HPRA, which publishes the leaflet and SmPC.
- EUEuropean Union: Nexium ControlEMA product information: package leaflet and summary of product characteristics in every EU language.
- 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.
Reference identifiers for Esomeprazole
- ATC code
- A02BC05
- ChEMBL
- CHEMBL1201320
- DrugBank
- DB00736
- PubChem CID
- 9568614
- CAS number
- 119141-88-7
- FDA UNII
- N3PA6559FT
- Wikidata
- Q553223
- Wikipedia
- Esomeprazole
Codes that identify this medicine in other databases, from Wikidata (CC0), matched by its ChEMBL ID. The ATC code is the WHO classification of what the medicine is used for.
What Nexium is used for
NEXIUM is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI). NEXIUM delayed-release capsules and NEXIUM for delayed-release oral suspension are indicated for the: • Short-term treatment in the healing of erosive esophagitis (EE) in adults and pediatric patients 12 years to 17 years of age. ( 1.1 ) • Maintenance of healing of EE in adults. ( 1.2 ) • Short-term treatment of heartburn and other symptoms associated GERD in adults and pediatric patients 12 years to 17 years of age. ( 1.3 ) • Risk reduction of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID)-associated gastric ulcer in adults at risk for developing gastric ulcers due to age (60 years and older) and/or documented history of gastric ulcers. ( 1.4 ) • Helicobacter pylori eradication in adult patients to reduce the risk of duodenal ulcer recurrence in combination with amoxicillin and clarithromycin. ( 1.5 ) • Long-term treatment of pathological hypersec…
How it works
12.1 Mechanism of Action Esomeprazole belongs to a class of antisecretory compounds, the substituted benzimidazoles, that suppress gastric acid secretion by specific inhibition of the H+/K+ ATPase enzyme system at the secretory surface of the gastric parietal cell. Esomeprazole is protonated and converted in the acidic compartment of the parietal cell forming the active inhibitor, the achiral sulphenamide. Because this enzyme system is regarded as the acid (proton) pump within the gastric mucosa, esomeprazole has been characterized as a gastric acid-pump inhibitor, in that it blocks the final step of acid production. This effect is dose-related and leads to inhibition of both basal and stim…
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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 5 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.