[1] Polypills may be aimed to be consumed by healthy people as a means of preventive medicine, and/or treating actual pathophysiological condition(s), the former typically involving lower dosages than the latter.
Polypills can reduce the number of tablets or capsules (generally orally administered) that need to be taken, which in turn may facilitate handling and administration of pharmaceuticals as well as alleviate patient pill-burden.
Also, elderly patients in particular are likely to require several medications on a daily basis for managing multiple conditions, and they are also particularly susceptible to difficulties remembering or keeping track of their regimen.
[4] In 2001, a World Health Organization and The Wellcome Trust meeting of experts to discuss interventions for non-communicable diseases noted “the use of a single pill could well encourage patients to adhere to treatment as well as seriously reduce the cost of the drugs”[5] A programme of research was outlined, including stability and bio-availability testing followed by assessment of short-term effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, platelet aggregation, safety and side effects.
Physicians in many countries have wide discretion to prescribe customized drug products containing unique drug-dosage combinations and/or formulations thereof specifically for individual patients, which can then be custom-produced in a compounding pharmacy.
While fewer pharmacists are trained and experienced in the relevant skills anymore, especially regarding oral dosage forms, such compounding pharmacies nevertheless can be found and utilized via mail-order (if not available locally) with sufficient notice and planning.
They proposed combining six medications already established in treating cardiovascular disease and associated conditions, providing these in a single pill to people in Western countries aged 55 years or more as a preventive measure (albeit in lower doses than when used for treatment).
The polypill, drugs to lower blood pressure, is produced[12][13] in Iran by the support of Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order was designed 14 years ag and called "PolyIran".
The pill in the study, which involved the participation of 6,800 rural villagers aged 50 to 75 in Iran, contained a cholesterol-lowering statin, two blood-pressure drugs and a low-dose aspirin.
A widely distributed polypill could contain three blood pressure medications at low dose: a diuretic, such as hydrochlorothiazide, a beta-blocker such as atenolol, and an ACE inhibitor such as lisinopril; and these could be combined with a statin such as simvastatin, aspirin at a dose of 75 mg, and folic acid, which has been shown to reduce the level of homocysteine in the blood, which is another risk factor for heart disease.