title: Femoxetine
text: # Femoxetine
  
  Femoxetine (INN; tentative brand name Malexil; developmental code name FG-4963) is a drug related to paroxetine that was being developed as an antidepressant by Danish pharmaceutical company Ferrosan in 1975 before acquisition of the company by Novo Nordisk. It acts as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Development was halted to focus attention on paroxetine instead, as femoxetine could not be administered as a daily pill.
  
  Both femoxetine and paroxetine were invented in the 1970s. Jørgen Anders Christensen's name is on the patents and Jorgen Buus-Lassen's name is on the pharmacology paper.
  
  After Ferrosan's acquisition, femoxetine died from neglect.
  
  In a separate patent, Ferrosan stated that Femoxetine could be used as an appetite suppressant, using ten times the dosage than for paroxetine, 300 - 400mg daily.
  
  Femoxetine has the same stereochemical properties as Nocaine, another agent with a similar structure claimed to have been synthesized using arecoline as the starting alkaloid.
  
  ## Analogs
  
  * Addition of the para-fluoro atom results in a different compound that is a hybrid of femoxetine & paroxetine named FG 7080, which has a separate patent. According to the patent tables, incorporation of the fluorine atom potentiated the 5-HT affinity considerably.
  * Pfizer made some similar analogs E.g. a Viloxazine type of catechol ether is used, but 4-phenyl instead of based on a morpholine ring.
  * NNC-63-0780. binds to ORL1 instead of SERT.
  * NNC 09-0026
  