Preparation of antidepressants for use in preclinical research

Obtaining drugs for use in basic and preclinical research has become increasingly difficult and in many instances is dependent upon the company's interest in the proposed research. In this paper, we describe a simple procedure for extracting the antidepressants sertraline, paroxetine, fluoxetine, venlafaxine, citalopram, escitalopram, duloxetine and atomoxetine from their readily available pharmaceutical preparations. With the exception of citalopram, escitalopram and duloxetine in which the free base was the final product, the hydrochloride salt forms of these drugs were prepared. This procedure provides these antidepressants in gram quantities in recovered yields ranging from 53% to 100% at over 99% purity and is in principle applicable to other drugs as well.