Venlafaxine Extended Release (Effexor XR)
Once-daily extended-release venlafaxine capsule. It slows absorption and lowers peak concentration while preserving the extent of absorption compared with divided immediate-release dosing.
Projected serum levels — 75 mg, once daily
Maintenance schedule: 75 mg once daily (oral).
Modeled steady state after ~1 days: peak ≈ 16.9 mg, trough ≈ 2.9 mg body load. Population-based estimate over 15 days for a 75 mg dose at a 70 kg reference body mass — the interactive app scales curves to your doses, timing, and body mass.
Key facts
- Category
- SNRI
- Route modeled
- Oral
- Model confidence
- predicted
- Half-life
- 5 h
- Common dose
- 75 mg
- Suggested maximum
- 225 mg/day
- Reference dose range
- 37.5–225 mg (single dose)
- Suggested cadence
- once daily
- Validated against
- 150 mg oral — Cmax 0.15 mg/L at 5.5 h
Research behind this entry
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Venlafaxine extended release versus placebo and paroxetine in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial for generalized anxiety disorder
Large RCT demonstrating venlafaxine XR 75-225 mg/day significantly reduced anxiety in GAD patients versus placebo, with response rates of 58-66% at 8 weeks.
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Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder
Landmark network meta-analysis of 522 trials ranked venlafaxine among the most effective antidepressants, though with lower acceptability than SSRIs due to side effects and discontinuation issues.
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Clinical pharmacokinetics of venlafaxine and O-desmethylvenlafaxine
PK study establishing venlafaxine half-life of 5 hours, active metabolite ODV half-life of 11 hours, and CYP2D6-dependent metabolism with wide interindividual variability in parent-to-metabolite ratio.
3 published studies referenced in the app, each with a plain-language summary.