Avibactam / Aztreonam
Avibactam and aztreonam is a combination antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections in adults when other treatment options are limited.
🧬 Where this information comes from Click to expand
The clinical label records used on this page are FDA-filed Structured Product Labeling (SPL) retrieved through openFDA. We identified 1 clinical label set within the page’s selected clinical scope after exact ingredient or ingredient-combination matching and applicable route/form matching. Forms, routes, brands, labelers, strengths, and NDC product-record counts are built separately from matching FDA National Drug Code Directory records. The linked DailyMed document is a representative official source for verification, not the page’s only clinical source. View the linked label on DailyMed →
📖 Avibactam / Aztreonam: Patient Information Guide
A plain-language walkthrough of Avibactam / Aztreonam — what it treats, how it works, how it’s taken, side effects, warnings and interactions. Tap any section to expand it.
🎯What it's used for▾
Emblaveo (avibactam and aztreonam) is a combination antibiotic given by IV in hospital settings for adults with serious bacterial infections when other antibiotics are not an option.
- Emblaveo injection is approved to treat complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) — serious infections inside the belly — in adults 18 and older who have limited or no alternative treatment options
- It targets specific susceptible gram-negative bacteria: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Klebsiella oxytoca, Enterobacter cloacae complex, Citrobacter freundii complex, and Serratia marcescens
- Emblaveo must always be used together with metronidazole for intra-abdominal infections
- It should only be prescribed for infections confirmed or strongly suspected to be caused by bacteria, to help prevent antibiotic resistance
⚙️How it works▾
Emblaveo pairs two drugs with different but complementary jobs. Aztreonam is a monobactam antibiotic — it kills gram-negative bacteria by blocking the construction of their cell wall, causing them to fall apart. Avibactam is a beta-lactamase inhibitor: it disables the enzymes (beta-lactamases) that some resistant bacteria produce to break down and neutralize antibiotics like aztreonam. Together, they can fight bacteria that would normally be resistant to aztreonam alone.
The effectiveness of aztreonam depends on keeping drug levels above the bacteria's resistance threshold for enough time during each dosing interval — which is why it is given as a slow 3-hour infusion rather than a quick injection.
💊How it's taken▾
Emblaveo is given only by intravenous (IV) infusion in a hospital or clinic — it cannot be taken by mouth. Each infusion runs over 3 hours. A single loading dose is given first, followed by maintenance doses given every 6, 8, or 12 hours depending on how well the kidneys are working. The full treatment course lasts 5 to 14 days.
- Dose and frequency are adjusted based on kidney function — patients with reduced kidney function receive lower or less frequent doses
- On hemodialysis days, Emblaveo is given after the dialysis session
- Metronidazole must be given at the same time for intra-abdominal infections
- Always follow your prescriber's and care team's specific instructions — do not adjust the schedule on your own
🤒Side effects — in detail▾
The most commonly reported side effects with Emblaveo (occurring in more than 5% of patients in clinical trials) include:
- Liver enzyme elevations (abnormal liver blood test results)
- Anemia (low red blood cell count)
- Diarrhea
- Low potassium (hypokalemia)
- Fever
Less common side effects include nausea, vomiting, rash, dizziness, headache, low blood pressure, and phlebitis (vein irritation at the infusion site). Serious reactions — including severe allergic reactions, dangerous skin peeling (toxic epidermal necrolysis), significant liver injury, and C. difficile gut infection — require immediate medical attention if they occur.
⚠️Warnings & precautions▾
- Allergic reactions: Emblaveo can cause hypersensitivity reactions including rash, flushing, and bronchospasm (airway tightening). The infusion will be stopped immediately if this happens. Anyone with a known allergy to aztreonam or avibactam must not receive Emblaveo.
- Serious skin reactions: Rare cases of toxic epidermal necrolysis (severe, life-threatening skin peeling) have been reported with aztreonam, mainly in bone marrow transplant patients with multiple risk factors. Emblaveo will be stopped if a severe skin reaction develops.
- Liver effects: Elevated liver enzymes are common; liver labs will be monitored during treatment. Emblaveo may need to be discontinued if levels rise significantly.
- C. difficile colitis: As with all antibiotics, Emblaveo can allow a dangerous gut bacterium (Clostridioides difficile) to overgrow, causing diarrhea that can become severe. This can happen even weeks after finishing the antibiotic.
- Antibiotic resistance: Emblaveo should only be used when there is a confirmed or strongly suspected bacterial infection — using it unnecessarily contributes to drug-resistant bacteria.
🔀What it interacts with▾
Emblaveo has a limited but important drug interaction profile. Talk to your care team about all medications you are taking.
- Probenecid and other OAT1/OAT3 inhibitors: These drugs block kidney transporters that help clear avibactam from the body. The effect on avibactam levels is not fully characterized, so combining them with Emblaveo is not recommended.
- Metronidazole: Given together with Emblaveo for abdominal infections — no clinically significant interaction between the two has been identified in studies.
This is not a complete list of interactions. Always talk with your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping, or changing any medication.
📋Before taking it▾
- Allergy to aztreonam or avibactam: Emblaveo is contraindicated — do not use it if you have had a hypersensitivity reaction to either component.
- Kidney disease: Both aztreonam and avibactam are cleared mainly by the kidneys. Reduced kidney function requires dose adjustments — your care team will calculate the right dose based on your kidney function tests.
- Older adults (65+): Kidney clearance naturally decreases with age, so dose selection must be based on current kidney function. No age-based dose adjustment is needed beyond what kidney function requires.
- Hemodialysis patients: Both components are removed by hemodialysis, so Emblaveo should be given after each dialysis session.
- Liver disease: No dose adjustment is needed, but liver enzyme levels will be monitored closely during treatment.
- Pregnancy: There are very limited human data. Animal studies with avibactam at high doses showed some fetal effects in rabbits. Discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor if you are pregnant.
- Breastfeeding: Aztreonam passes into breast milk in very small amounts. It is unknown whether avibactam passes into human milk. Discuss with your doctor whether to pause breastfeeding during treatment.
- Children under 18: Safety and effectiveness of Emblaveo have not been established in pediatric patients — it is not approved for this age group.
🚑If you take too much▾
There is no specific information available on what an overdose of Emblaveo looks like clinically. Both aztreonam and avibactam can be partially removed by hemodialysis, which may be considered in an overdose situation, though no clinical data on using dialysis for overdose management are available. If an overdose is suspected, contact the medical team or poison control immediately.
📡Pharmacodynamics — effects in the body▾
Aztreonam's effectiveness is best predicted by how long its blood levels stay above the minimum concentration needed to inhibit the target bacteria — so sustained levels matter more than peak levels. This is why it is infused slowly over 3 hours. For avibactam, efficacy correlates with the time its concentration stays above a threshold needed to suppress bacterial beta-lactamase enzymes. Avibactam does not meaningfully affect heart rhythm (QTc interval) at doses up to three times the recommended loading dose.
🔬Pharmacokinetics — how your body processes it▾
Both aztreonam and avibactam are given intravenously and distribute through the body with relatively small volumes of distribution. Neither drug is significantly metabolized by the liver — they are cleared almost entirely by the kidneys through filtration and secretion, with most of the dose excreted unchanged in urine. Both have short half-lives of approximately 2 hours in patients with normal kidney function. Because elimination is kidney-dependent, patients with reduced kidney function accumulate higher drug levels and require dose adjustments; older adults are particularly affected due to age-related decline in kidney function.
📦How to store it▾
stored at 2°C to 8°C (36°F to 46°F). Protect from light. Store in carton until time of use.
📄 Written from Avibactam / Aztreonam’s FDA-approved label information, summarized in plain language with AI, and reviewed by our pharmacy team before publication. Every point is grounded in that labeling — nothing is invented. How we use AI →
🩺 Pharmacist Counseling Corner
Quick, plain-English answers to the questions patients ask most about Avibactam / Aztreonam — the kind of thing our pharmacy team would talk through with you at the counter.
What exactly is Emblaveo being used to treat in my case? ▾
Why is this given as an IV drip and not a pill? ▾
What side effects should I watch out for? ▾
I have kidney disease — is this safe for me? ▾
Is it safe to take during pregnancy or while breastfeeding? ▾
Are there any medications I should avoid while on Emblaveo? ▾
Is Avibactam / Aztreonam available over the counter? ▾
When was Avibactam / Aztreonam first available? ▾
💬 Answers drafted from Avibactam / Aztreonam’s FDA-approved label information, summarized in plain language with AI, and reviewed by our pharmacy team before publication. Grounded in that labeling — nothing is made up. How we use AI →
🧰 Keep exploring
💊 How Avibactam / Aztreonam comes
Avibactam / Aztreonam is available in 1 form. Different forms and brands can have different approved uses, doses, schedules, and directions. Follow the instructions for your exact product, and do not switch forms without guidance from your prescriber or pharmacist.
Injection
How this form is used
- Emblaveo injection is used intravenously to treat complicated intra-abdominal infections in adults 18 and older who have limited or no alternative treatment options
- Emblaveo injection targets susceptible gram-negative bacteria including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and related organisms
- Emblaveo injection must be used alongside metronidazole when treating intra-abdominal infections
- Emblaveo injection is given as a slow IV infusion over 3 hours; a loading dose is given first, followed by maintenance doses at intervals determined by kidney function
- Emblaveo injection is prepared from a lyophilized (freeze-dried) powder that must be reconstituted with Sterile Water for Injection and then further diluted before infusion
- Emblaveo injection should be administered after hemodialysis on dialysis days in patients on hemodialysis
- Emblaveo injection is compatible with 0.9% sodium chloride, 5% dextrose, or lactated Ringer's solution for dilution — do not mix it with other medications
📊 Avibactam / Aztreonam across the U.S. market
How Avibactam / Aztreonam appears in the FDA’s National Drug Code Directory — including its dosage forms, strengths, brand names, manufacturers, and FDA-listed product records. These are directory records, not sales or prescription volume.
🔍 Compare Avibactam / Aztreonam products
A representative set of FDA-listed product records for Avibactam / Aztreonam — across manufacturers, strengths, and dosage forms, grouped by form with each product’s manufacturer and how the FDA approved it. The same medicine may be made and packaged by different companies, so a single drug can have many directory entries. (It’s also why a refill can look different — a new shape, color, or box — even though it contains the same medication.)
| Strength | Route | Manufacturer / Labeler | Category ⓘ | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 💊Injection | ||||
| AZTREONAM 42.3 mg/mL; AVIBACTAM 127 mg/mL | Intravenous | AbbVie Inc. | NDA | View NDC → |
| AZTREONAM 127 mg/mL; AVIBACTAM 42.3 mg/mL | Intravenous | AbbVie Inc. | NDA | View NDC → |
Showing 2 of 2 products — FDA National Drug Code Directory. See every product, package size and price: browse all 2 Avibactam / Aztreonam NDCs →
📈 What people report — real-world data (FDA FAERS)
After a medicine reaches the market, patients, doctors and drugmakers can send the FDA reports of problems they think may be linked to it. Here’s what’s been reported for Avibactam / Aztreonam — a signal of what to watch for, not proof the drug caused it.
Source: openFDA, from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). These are voluntary reports — they don’t prove the drug caused the effect, and counts reflect how often something was reported, not how often it actually happens. Reports also often name the very problem the medicine is taken for — a common reason to file one is that the drug didn’t help — so for a pain reliever you may see “pain” high on the list; that points to why the report was filed, not to the drug causing the symptom. This counts every report that lists Avibactam / Aztreonam in any role, so the total runs higher than the FDA’s official dashboard, which counts only cases where the drug is the suspect. For the authoritative figures, see the FDA FAERS Public Dashboard. Always talk to your pharmacist or doctor.
🏛️ The road to your pharmacy
How Avibactam / Aztreonam went from FDA review to the pharmacy shelf — the key milestones in its regulatory journey.
Source: Drugs@FDA.
🚨 Recall history
A recall is when a specific batch of a medicine is pulled from the market — usually a manufacturing issue, not a problem with the drug itself. Class I is most serious, Class III least.
Source: openFDA drug enforcement (recall) reports.
RxNorm Concept Web — From Ingredient to Every Form and Strength
This page starts with one exact multiple-ingredient concept (MIN). The branches below show its dose-form concepts (SCDF), then the available clinical drug and strength concepts (SCD). A product with a different ingredient combination belongs on a different page.
RxCUI 2705352 1 dose form · 1 strength
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Dose form (SCDF) Injection RxCUI 2705354In current FDA listingsClinical drug / strength (SCD) avibactam 500 MG / aztreonam 1500 MGRxCUI 2705355
Look up RxCUI 2705352 in the RxCUI Atlas →
RxNorm is the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s normalized drug vocabulary. Its concept hierarchy can include forms that are not currently marketed; the status on each branch compares that concept with current FDA listings. RxCUIs identify vocabulary concepts, not individual packages or manufacturers.
📦 Supply & shortage status
Whether Avibactam / Aztreonam is in short supply in the U.S. right now, plus any shortage history the FDA has on record. A shortage usually reflects a manufacturing or demand issue — not a safety problem with the drug.
Source: openFDA, from the FDA Drug Shortages database.
🏷️ Sold under these brand names
🏭 Manufacturers & labelers
RxNorm drug class
Avibactam / Aztreonam belongs to the Monobactam Antibacterial class.
Classified by RxNorm RxClass — the U.S. National Library of Medicine's standardized drug-classification service (Established Pharmacologic Class from the FDA, the ATC drug family from the WHO, and mechanism of action). Reference only, not medical advice.
🔬 Where this comes from
Core label, product, RxNorm, safety, and utilization data on this page come from the sources identified below. AI-written, editorial, and licensed sections are labeled separately.
How we combine label and product data
HelloPharmacist combines public FDA and NLM records; we don’t author the underlying clinical facts. We identified 1 FDA-filed SPL label set within the page’s selected clinical scope after exact ingredient or ingredient-combination matching and applicable route/form matching. The representative label is the starting point for the displayed reference monograph; the 12 largest stored in-scope SPL records, which may include that representative, are compared section by section, and the longest available version of each section is retained. Forms, routes, brands, labelers, product-listed strengths, and product-record counts are aggregated separately from ingredient-matched FDA NDC Directory records; package records listed above are associated with the linked SPL; and the normalized concept hierarchy comes from NLM RxNorm.
For canonical ingredient pages, bounded product-attributed indication and administration excerpts may be added to the AI evidence, and the generator is instructed to preserve available product, brand, route, and form qualifiers instead of treating one label as universal. Where a section is identified as AI-written, its plain-language text is generated from bounded label evidence. New draft drug pages remain in the admin review queue before first publication. AbbVie Inc. is the representative DailyMed label linked for verification and dates; it is not the sole source used for the page.
This is general education, not medical advice — always consult your doctor or pharmacist about your medications and any medical condition. For the exact wording of the linked representative label, view that label on DailyMed; some displayed composite sections may come from other in-scope SPL labels. Learn how we use AI and our data sources & update cadence.