Effexor XR
An oral daily antidepressant used to treat major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders.
Where Venlafaxine is approved
All regulators →Of the three regulators tracked here, the first to approve Venlafaxine was the US, on 28 Dec 1993. It is approved in 2 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.
Venlafaxine patents and exclusivity
Expiry tracker →Protections still running for marketed products containing Venlafaxine, as listed by the regulators. Expired patents and exclusivities, and discontinued products, are not shown.
- 1 listed patent; the last listed expires 16 May 2028 (US 7776358).
Reproduced from the FDA Orange Book and Purple Book (checked 12 Oct 2026) and the European Commission's Union Register of medicinal products (CC BY 4.0; the EU expiry date is calculated exactly as the Commission's register displays it). Listed patents and dates are as submitted to or published by the regulator and may not reflect litigation, invalidation, settlements, lapsed fees or later extensions. This is not legal advice or a freedom-to-operate opinion, and it does not say when a generic or biosimilar will launch.
What health systems spend on Venlafaxine
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 Venlafaxine works
All drug targets →- Serotonin transporter inhibitor InhibitorTarget: SLC6A4 solute carrier family 6 member 4✓ In ChEMBL and the Guide to Pharmacology
- Norepinephrine transporter inhibitor InhibitorTarget: SLC6A2 solute carrier family 6 member 2✓ In ChEMBL and the Guide to Pharmacology
- Breast cancerPhase 3
- Generalized anxiety disorderPhase 3
- Panic disorderPhase 3
- Social phobiaPhase 3
- Bipolar disorderPhase 2
- Neuropathic painPhase 2
- Rheumatoid arthritisPhase 2
Mechanisms and diseases from ChEMBL via the Open Targets Platform (release 26.09), ChEMBL record CHEMBL637, CC BY-SA 3.0. Targets checked against the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (2026.3), ligand 7321, 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 Venlafaxine
The package leaflet is the official guide for patients that comes with every medicine. These links go to the regulators that publish it.
- IEIreland: 29 products on the HPRA listEach product record links to the HPRA, which publishes the leaflet and SmPC.
- 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 Venlafaxine
- ATC code
- N06AX16
- ChEMBL
- CHEMBL637
- DrugBank
- DB00285
- PubChem CID
- 5656
- CAS number
- 93413-69-5
- FDA UNII
- GRZ5RCB1QG
- Wikidata
- Q898407
- Wikipedia
- Venlafaxine
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 Effexor XR is used for
Effexor XR is indicated in adults for the treatment of: • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) [see Clinical Studies (14.1) ] • Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) [see Clinical Studies (14.2) ] • Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) [see Clinical Studies (14.3) ] • Panic Disorder (PD) [see Clinical Studies (14.4) ] Effexor XR is a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) indicated for the treatment of adults with: • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) ( 1 ) • Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) ( 1 ) • Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) ( 1 ) • Panic Disorder (PD) ( 1 )
How it works
12.1 Mechanism of Action The mechanism of action of venlafaxine in the treatment of MDD, GAD, SAD, and PD is unclear, but is thought to be related to the potentiation of serotonin and norepinephrine in the central nervous system, through inhibition of their reuptake.
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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 12 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.