What Is The Best Generic Brand Of Wellbutrin
(Newest replies first)

FYI: The drug manufacturer Watson bought out Activist. Watson "made a business decision" to no longer produce the Watson generic brand of Wellbutrin and only produce the Activist version. Watson was the brand that worked for me (I've tried many) so it's unfortunate they have made this business decision. I've called the company to request they continue to manufacture the Watson version. Anyone going through the same situation may want to call Watson 1-800-272-5525. *** if anyone takes a generic that doesn't work they should notify the F.D.A. 1-855-543-3784.

REPLY

REPORT

I do wonder if we, being each unique, respond differently to the various generics. I am currently on ACCORD HEA 150mg/day (from Costco) and feeling the best I have in a long time.
I've also, noticed that when the weather gets really nasty (winter &summer in Tx), my mood tends to sink. I need to be outside, in nature.
This forum has been very helpful, as I have become more aware of how I am feeling on various generics. I'm more likely to report lack of effectiveness.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

My copay for Wellbutrin XL300 is 300.00 for a 30 day supply! Where are you getting name brand for $50.00?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Me too. the migraines are unbearable and often. Bad dreams are back and waking me up nightly.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I used Direct Access for 2 years when my generic was canceled. It was great. I wasn't getting a generic...I was getting the real Wellbutrin. Then last year they told me the government said i don't qualify for this great price because I have medicare and another precription coverage. I went to Canada (Valeant also) but this is my 4th month and it's not working. I don't know what to do next. I don't want to start all over with generics that don't work which is what my insurance only cover.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I have been taking Direct Success Canada's valeant Wellbutrin, it felt like the generic version and I felt awful and weepy. Then got a bottle at CVS, seemed to start working, but now have extreme headaches and nausea

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

Several years ago I knew something was different when pharmacy wouldn't fill Watson brand which was more stable for me. Since then the generic doesn't feel so stable. Thank you for posting about Watson. In the back of my mind I keep wondering if I should try to get back on Watson, guess not.
What have you found as substitute and is it working?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Watson brand worked best for me but past two years I don't feel as motivated with substitutions from pharmacy. I can't tell if its that or combination of other medications. Good to read about change in Watson, I didn't know of changes. Thank you.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I agree with you 100%. That's exactly the same thing I have found. Let's all start complaining some where. Please let me know how it's going now for you. I see all the big company's are buying each other up and moving to Ireland and have their manufacturing done all over the place. Anchen and Par have been very bad for awhile now, Par was good a year ago but was bought in about Sept 2015. Now at lest what I get is very bad dumps in 2 hrs. I'm trying to see if I can get the name brand or try and quit.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

"Valeant Wellbutrin XL 150 mg does not work."
I agree. This is the first place I have found someone else having anything negative to say about the Valeant Wellbutrin XL 150. I have been on "brand" for over 15 years.
I had been getting the GSK from Turkey version from Canadian pharmacies over the past few years. Last fall I began to feel like it wasn't working and checked and what I was taking was manufactured by Valeant and made in Canada. I had a bottle of the GSK from Turkey and switched back. Felt fine again. After finishing that bottle, back to Canadian Valeant and I again feel like it isn't working. I can't find any options other than the Valeant either here in the US or through Canadian pharmacies.
Anybody else?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

We don't know what ended up happening with wellbutrin the Watson-Activiss merger. Maybe they are using the old Watson recipe, maybe they are using the old Activiss recipe. Maybe they are using a completely new recipe -- which could be better than both, worse than both, or somewhere in between.

We simply don't know, and nobody is out there collecting data to tell us.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Aboveiut was said that watson bought out a competitor and used the compecompetitor's wellbutrin.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I agree Watson is the only generic that's worth paying for

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Valeant Wellbutrin XL 150 mg does not work. On brand name for over 15 years. Began researching and agree with many comments regarding Wellbutrin XL generic as not only not containing the same ingredients and causing reactions, but that for those who rely on medication for any form of mental illness--and have found success with a particular brand--life is difficult enough without mental illness...

I will try Watson and post after trial.

Shame on the pharmaceutical companies for not seeing how financial decisions to save a buck are destroying people's lives, affecting families, and hopefully what goes around comes around to everyone connected with these companies and knowingly participates in financial gain (greed) in living the lie.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Check the Wellbutrin website and there is a link to get it for $50 or $0. It cost nothing if your commercial insurance pays at least $100.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Watson pulled some of the higher doses off the shelves but left the lower doses. I took the 100 SR Watson Wellbutrin and had a terrible time with it. Stomach issues right away and anxiety , scared terror feelings in morning and worsing of depression till I was suicidal. Seems the longer I took it the worse I got. Some days I would feel almost manic and other times really low . It was not releasing right. Then I took the 75 mg IR and the first pill sent me into a hysterical state. Vice grip headache,shaking, crying non stop,feeling like I was dying ,out of my head for about 2 hrs. The brand was Apotex. I was afraid to just stop taking it so I cut the pill in half and took it for 2 more weeks . Bad mistake. I got worse with stomach upset. Losing 10 lbs . More panic and scared and more suicidal thoughts. Been off of it for 2 months and still not the same. Still sick .If you get a pill that does not seem right do not continue to take it. Withdraw woud be better than what ever these pills are doing to your body.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Janie, go to wellbutrinxl.com/savingscard/consumer/guarantee-program. It gives instructions for signing up for Valeant's mail-order pharmacy. They will send you the pills for a payment of $50 per month. You will see there that they make a big deal about getting the drug for a $0 copay, but you need to be aware of what they are going to do if you take that option.

The way that the Direct Success works when you have insurance is that they charge the insurance company the full ridiculously inflated price, and tell the insurance company that they collected the co-pay from you, and they they just don't collect it. I figured this out when I first started last year, because the phony co-pay generated a check from our flexible spending account. I had to straighten that out, because otherwise it would be tax fraud!

I decided to tell Direct Success to just send me the bill for the $50 co-pay and leave insurance out of it, which they have been doing. Then in February, they billed my insurance by mistake, reversed it, and then billed me for the $50. I saw this as a payment from my flex account, which was then reversed a week later, but I saw the amounts: $773.97 was the total prescription cost, with $232.19 my fake "co-pay" and that meant that the insurance company would have paid $541.78!

And the full price has almost doubled in the last 8 months, too -- the fake co-pay last May was $122.

If you look at the rules, they are not allowed to bill Medicare via this kind of scamish arrangement....

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

How are you able to get the brand name Wellbutrin for $50/mo? I would gladly pay for it!!!

Thank you!

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Some information...

-- The way that the evaluations are done is that healthy volunteers (who are not depressed) take the brand name and then they draw blood every hour and measure the levels of medication. Then the same volunteers take the generic and they take blood every hour and compare. If the blood levels of the medication are the same, or close, then they call it bioequivalent.

-- When the generics first came out, they were evaluated at the 150 mg dose. This is because there is a tiny seizure risk with the smaller dose, but the 300 mg and 450 mg have a small but not tiny risk. The assumption was that if it worked for the 150 mg, then it should work the same way for the higher doses.

-- The SR and XL formulations are time release to lower the seizure risk, but when they were developed no one thought that there would be any difference with how effective the drug is at treating depression, because they thought that the anti-depressive effects were just about the total dose, not dependent upon the exact timing of the medication entering the bloodstream.

-- When millions of people started taking the various generics, this particular drug seemed to have far more variations in efficacy from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even from batch to batch in the same brand. The most obvious theory is that the "inactive" ingredients matter a lot more for this drug than is usual.

-- Teva seemed to have lots of complaints, so the FDA organized evaluations of the 300mg dose with healthy volunteers, and discovered that at the 300mg dose the Teva brand did NOT deliver the drug over the time in the same way as the brand. So then the FDA asked the other manufacturers to evaluate their 300mg, and Watson and Anchen turned out to have different 300mg versions as well. BUT THIS IS ONLY FOR THE 300mg! Everybody's 150mg generics were evaluated years ago, and WERE proven back then. AND that still doesn't address the consistency problem -- just because a manufacturer managed to produce one batch that worked like brand doesn't mean that all of the batches work. Watson voluntarily withdrew its 300 mg when it was shown to be too different from brand, and this was at the same time as them buying Actavis. They decided to stop making the 150mg under the Watson name because they thought that the brand name was tarnished by the 300 mg fiasco. But NO ONE outside of the internal bowels of the company knows whether the 150mg that the new company makes and labels with the Actavis name is the old Watson formula, the old Activis formula, or some new formula. Teva stopped making all of its versions after its 300mg dose was found to be different.

Now my personal experience is with the 150 mg dose, with the 2009 & 2010 Teva, 2011 Activis, 2011-2013 Watson, 2014 Par & 2014-1015 Wellbutrin by Valeant. At 150mg, Teva and Watson were always rock solid and rock solid consistent for me, while with both the Activis and the Par I had batches that worked as well as Teva & Watson and batches that were a disaster. So for me, personally, my experience is that the FDA and the drug manufacturers have managed to eliminate the only two cheap 150mg brands that work for me, leaving me with brand name Wellbutrin as my only option. I'm very grateful that it's available and I can afford it at $50/month, but would be a little happier if there was still a consistently working 150mg generic on the market that only cost $10/month.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 5

Nino,
How are you doing now that you've been on brand name Wellbutrin for a few months?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Going back to the original statement on the thread, the company name is "Actavis" and Watson Pharmaceuticals acquired the company then decided to use their name for the combined companies.

ir.actavis.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=65778&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1752587

Of the two, only Watson was manufacturing a generic Wellbutrin prior to the acquisition, and they continue to manufacture it under the Actavis label. As they told me today over the phone, the formulation has not changed at all since the acquisition. So "Actavis" is equivalent to "Watson." At least that is true for the generic for Wellbutrin XL 150mg.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

My doctor will not prescribe generic Wellbutrin XL but my insurance will no longer pay for brand name drugs. I will have...

1459 REPLIES

FYI, see: fda.gov / Drugs / DrugSafety / PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders / ucm322161.htm?source=g...

6 REPLIES

Been on BRAND XANAX FOR 20 YRS-PANIC ATTACKS/SEVERE ANXIETY; TAKE 9MGS/DAY AND AS NEEDED FOR PANIC ATTACKS. USED TO TAKE...

55 REPLIES

I've been taking the generic for Lamictal for about five years. Recently I've been feeling different at about th...

216 REPLIES

If anyone could help me with just these two...Rhodes or Endo - as those are the only choices I have for right now, I'...

9 REPLIES

I have been taking diclofenac for about 6 months. Had it filled at 2 different pharmacies who had different suppliers. O...

3 REPLIES

Hi - I just got a perscription for the Sun Pharma generic version of Wellbutrin SR (Bupropion HCL SR). Has anyone had su...

83 REPLIES

I'm am told by my husband's dad to make my husband take wellbutrin Sr 150 mg ta for his anxiety. But he got gene...

8 REPLIES

I Just need to know the namr4 of the dug thyat dopa/levo is a generic for. ## Where are you located? There are quite a f...

1 REPLY

I'm going to get my script soon, ive been taking the Actavis brand (Walgreens) and I asked if my next refill it coul...

54 REPLIES