THE ESSENTIAL
- Todacitant is the only drug to stop smoking reimbursed in Spain.
- According to the High Authority for Health, every year 750,000 people stop smoking for at least a year in France.
Patches, tablets, chewing gum, sprays… There is no shortage of solutions to quit smoking. But a new drug, Todacitan, promises to quit smoking in 25 days.
An effective drug to quit smoking…
This treatment has been marketed in Spain since February 1 and reimbursed by social security for people who have already tried to quit smoking and who smoke more than 10 a day.
Todacitan is composed of cytisine, a substance of plant origin that is already used in Eastern European countries as a treatment to quit smoking. According to a study published in the journal The News England Journal of Medicineit would even be more effective than nicotine.
To take the treatment, smokers must follow several steps. For the first three days they continue to smoke, but they have to take six tablets a day, that is to say one every two hours. Then, from the fourth day, they stop smoking but they must take one tablet every 2.5 hours until the twelfth day. Finally, the next day, the dose is reduced until the end of treatment.
According to the pneumologist Carlos Rábade, the success rate of this treatment would be very high and the patients would be happy with it. It would also be well tolerated, with the only adverse effects being mild to moderate gastrointestinal disturbances.
…authorized in Spain but not in France
Nevertheless, even if you are a heavy smoker, pay attention to the contraindications: hypersensitivity to the active substance or to the excipients contained in the drug, unstable angina pectoris, recent myocardial infarction, clinically relevant or significant arrhythmias, a recent stroke. It is not recommended to use this drug in case of pregnancy and lactation or use of hormonal contraceptives, anti-epileptic treatments and anti-tuberculosis treatments.
Cytisine in medicinal form is therefore authorized in Spain as well as in around twenty countries, but not in France. “The pharmaceutical industries are not interested in this molecule because it is not very profitable: its marketing in France would only generate low profits.“, explains Henri-Jean Aubinhead of the Addictology research team at INSERM, who points out that “cytisine is worth considering“.
In Spain, the treatment costs about 116 euros for 100 tablets.
