Quitting smoking can be an elusive challenge for many people with nicotine dependence. To help them achieve this, starting this month they will have Recigarum, a new drug that the National Health System will finance once a year for consumers of a minimum of 10 cigarettes a day who have tried to quit smoking in the last year.
Recigarum is indicated to treat tobacco dependence and anxiety about consuming nicotine in smokers over 18 years of age who want to quit smoking, and its goal is for them to achieve it in just 25 days, as explained by Adamed Laboratorios, the company who has developed this medicine, which must be prescribed by a doctor
“Smoking is an addictive and chronic disease that causes around 61,000 deaths annually in Spain. Although 70% of smokers want to quit, only 20% of them go to a health professional asking for help to achieve this. When a smoker makes a serious attempt to quit smoking and does not receive adequate treatment, his or her chances of success are around 5%-10%. On the contrary, when you receive appropriate treatment (psychological support plus pharmacological treatment and follow-up by a health professional), your chances of success are multiplied by three, and even four. Therefore, it is highly recommended that every smoker who wants to make a serious attempt to quit smoking seek help from a health professional,” stated Dr. Carlos Jiménez, Doctor of Medicine, Specialist in Pulmonology and Expert in smoking at the drug presentation.
This is how this new drug works to quit smoking in just 25 days
According to Adamed, this is the first drug that goes directly to the smoking cessation market financed by the National Health System (SNS) and the final objective of its treatment is the permanent cessation of smoking in 25 days. To improve patient adherence to treatment, it has a calendared blister that will make it easier to comply with the dosage. The treatment consists of 100 tablets for less than a month.
“When a smoker makes a serious attempt to quit smoking and receives appropriate treatment (psychological support plus pharmacological treatment and follow-up), his or her chances of success are multiplied by three or four”
The active ingredient in Recigarum is cytisinicline, which has been used in Eastern Europe to stop smoking for decades and has demonstrated an adequate efficacy and safety profile in various studies and clinical trials, such as one published in JAMA in July of this year. same year.
The price of the product, according to the EFE Agency, will be 111 euros without financing, while patients will enjoy coverage of between 40 and 60% of its price, as long as they meet certain requirements set by the Ministry of Health. For example, they must be included in a support program (individual or group) for smoking cessation implemented in their autonomous community, and they must have that express motivation to quit smoking, which can be verified with an attempt in the last year.
People who wish to follow this treatment will also have to be consumers of 10 or more cigarettes a day and will only be able to access one funded attempt per year; Each prescription includes a container with 100 tablets that are equivalent to 25 days of treatment. The scheduled blister facilitates adherence, and this is its main novelty compared to Todacitan, the other medicine financed by the Health Ministry.
From the first to the third day, you must take one tablet every two hours up to a maximum of six; The frequency is progressively reduced until reaching between one and two pills between days 21 and 25. During those 25 days, the patient will be monitored through a WhatsApp channel where they can resolve all their doubts.
On the fifth day after starting treatment, the patient should stop smoking and never do so during treatment because this could worsen the adverse reactions; Those who do not succeed or who relapse as soon as they finish will be able to try again after two or three months, but without Social Security coverage.
Regarding its most common adverse effects, some of which can also be attributed to quitting tobacco, one in 10 patients experiences alterations in appetite (mainly increase), weight gain, dizziness, irritability, mood changes, anxiety, hypertension, dry mouth, diarrhea, skin rash, or sleep disorders and headache or muscle pain, among others.
“Adamed’s commitment to smoking cessation, to this addictive disease that is smoking, is total. For this reason, we have worked to bring a new medicine that helps patients quit smoking in 25 days, with an innovation in the blister pack, scheduled, to help people who want to quit smoking to correctly follow the dosage of cytisinicline. Furthermore, the drug is financed by the SNS, which is great news for all Spaniards,” concludes Marcin Nowak, general director of Adamed in Spain.
