Praziquantel
Praziquantel is an antiparasitic medication used to treat schistosomiasis (blood fluke infection) and liver fluke infections (clonorchiasis and opisthorchiasis).
🧬 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 2 clinical label sets 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 →
📖 Praziquantel: Patient Information Guide
A plain-language walkthrough of Praziquantel — 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▾
Praziquantel is an antiparasitic medicine approved for patients aged 1 year and older. It treats the following parasitic worm infections:
- Schistosomiasis — infection with blood flukes including Schistosoma mekongi, S. japonicum, S. mansoni, and S. hematobium; both Biltricide and praziquantel tablets are approved for this use
- Clonorchiasis — infection with the liver fluke Clonorchis sinensis; both Biltricide and praziquantel tablets are approved for this use
- Opisthorchiasis — infection with the liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini; both Biltricide and praziquantel tablets are approved for this use
⚙️How it works▾
Praziquantel is classified as an anthelmintic — a drug that fights parasitic worms inside the body. After you swallow the tablet, it is rapidly absorbed into your bloodstream and reaches peak levels within 1 to 3 hours. The liver breaks it down quickly using a set of enzymes called the cytochrome P450 system, and the inactive breakdown products are mostly cleared through the kidneys.
💊How it's taken▾
Praziquantel tablets are taken by mouth, with water, during a meal. The full treatment course is completed in a single day — three doses spaced 4 to 6 hours apart. Do not chew the tablets or hold them in your mouth; the bitter taste can trigger gagging or vomiting. Always follow your prescriber's exact schedule.
- Swallow tablets whole with water during meals whenever possible
- Tablets can be broken at scored notches to adjust the dose by body weight
- For children under 6, tablets may be crushed or dissolved and mixed with soft food or liquid — but use the mixture within 1 hour
- Never adjust your dose or schedule on your own — your prescriber has calculated your dose based on your weight
🤒Side effects — in detail▾
Most side effects with praziquantel are mild and tend to pass quickly. Common ones include:
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Nausea or stomach discomfort
- General feeling of being unwell
- Fever
- Hives (itchy skin welts)
- Fatigue or weakness
- Vomiting or abdominal pain
Side effects may be more frequent or more intense in people carrying a heavy parasite load. Seek immediate medical attention for signs of a severe allergic reaction, seizures, fainting, or a very slow or irregular heartbeat — these are rare but serious.
⚠️Warnings & precautions▾
- Serious immune reaction (clinical deterioration): Treating schistosomiasis in its early (acute) stage can trigger a sudden inflammatory response to dying parasites — this can rarely lead to breathing failure, brain swelling, or inflamed brain blood vessels. Watch for sudden worsening of symptoms and get emergency care if it happens.
- Neurological (brain/nerve) effects: Praziquantel can worsen brain or nerve problems linked to schistosomiasis or related parasitic conditions. People with a history of epilepsy or signs of cysticercosis (a parasitic cyst condition) should discuss risks carefully with their doctor before taking it.
- Cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat): Slow heart rate, abnormal rhythms, and other heart electrical problems have been reported. People with known heart rhythm conditions should be monitored during treatment.
- Liver impairment: If you have moderate to severe liver disease, praziquantel stays in your body much longer than usual and at higher levels — increasing the risk of side effects. Closer monitoring is needed.
- May be less effective during acute infection: Data suggest praziquantel may not fully prevent schistosomiasis from progressing if given very early in the infection.
🔀What it interacts with▾
Praziquantel is broken down by liver enzymes, so drugs that affect those enzymes can significantly change how well it works or how safe it is:
- Rifampin (and other strong CYP 3A inducers): Contraindicated — these drugs lower praziquantel levels so drastically that treatment is likely to fail
- Efavirenz and other moderate CYP 3A inducers: Should be avoided — they reduce praziquantel blood levels and may make treatment less effective; if treatment can be delayed, the interacting drug should be stopped 2–4 weeks before praziquantel is given
- Cimetidine, ketoconazole, itraconazole, erythromycin, ritonavir (CYP450 inhibitors): These can raise praziquantel blood levels, potentially increasing the risk of side effects
- Grapefruit juice: Can meaningfully increase praziquantel absorption — best avoided during treatment
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▾
- Do NOT take praziquantel if you have previously had an allergic reaction to it or any of its ingredients
- Do NOT take praziquantel if you have ocular cysticercosis (a parasitic cyst in or around the eye) — destroying the parasite inside the eye can cause permanent damage
- Tell your doctor if you have epilepsy or any history of seizures, or any signs of a neurological condition
- Tell your doctor about ALL medications you currently take — especially rifampin, HIV antivirals, antifungals, and antibiotics
- People with moderate to severe liver disease need closer monitoring — the drug stays in the body much longer
- Older adults may be at higher risk for side effects if their kidney function has declined
- Not for use in children under 1 year of age — safety has not been established
- If you are pregnant: available data have not shown increased risk of birth defects, but discuss your situation with your doctor before taking it
- If you are breastfeeding: praziquantel does appear in breast milk at low levels; discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor
🔬Pharmacokinetics — how your body processes it▾
After swallowing a praziquantel tablet, about 80% of the dose is absorbed into the bloodstream, with peak blood levels reached within 1 to 3 hours. The liver breaks the drug down rapidly using the cytochrome P450 enzyme system — the drug's half-life (the time it takes for blood levels to drop by half) is roughly 0.8 to 1.5 hours under normal conditions. About 80% of the dose leaves the body through the kidneys, almost entirely as inactive metabolites.
In people with moderate to severe liver disease, this process slows significantly — blood levels of unmetabolized praziquantel can be several times higher and last much longer than in people with healthy livers, which increases the risk of side effects. Kidney impairment does not require a dose adjustment, as the drug itself (rather than active metabolites) is cleared by the liver.
📦How to store it▾
Store at 20 ° to 25 ° C (68 ° to 77 ° F); excursions permitted between 15 ° and 30 ° C (59 ° and 86 ° F) .
📄 Written from Praziquantel’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 →
Supplements & herbs that interact with Praziquantel
18 supplements and herbal products have documented interactions with Praziquantel in the licensed clinical database we use. Most are manageable — but your pharmacist should know about everything you take, including vitamins and herbals.
- Major · 2
- Moderate · 7
- Minor · 9
Educational information from a licensed clinical database (Natural Medicines) — see our data sources & update cadence. Not medical advice: an interaction being documented does not mean it will happen to you; do not start or stop medications or supplements without professional guidance.
🩺 Pharmacist Counseling Corner
Quick, plain-English answers to the questions patients ask most about Praziquantel — the kind of thing our pharmacy team would talk through with you at the counter.
What exactly does praziquantel treat? ▾
Do I really have to take all three doses in one day? ▾
Can I chew the tablet or crush it? ▾
What side effects should I expect, and when should I be worried? ▾
Are there any medications or foods I need to avoid while taking this? ▾
Is it safe to take praziquantel if I'm pregnant or breastfeeding? ▾
Is Praziquantel available over the counter? ▾
When was Praziquantel first available? ▾
Who makes Praziquantel? ▾
💬 Answers drafted from Praziquantel’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 Praziquantel comes
Praziquantel 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.
Tablet
How this form is used
- Biltricide tablets are used to treat schistosomiasis (blood fluke infections) in patients aged 1 year and older
- Biltricide tablets are used to treat clonorchiasis and opisthorchiasis (liver fluke infections) in patients aged 1 year and older
- Praziquantel tablets are used to treat schistosomiasis (blood fluke infections) in patients aged 1 year and older
- Praziquantel tablets are used to treat clonorchiasis and opisthorchiasis (liver fluke infections) in patients aged 1 year and older
- Take tablets with water during a meal — do not chew or hold pieces in your mouth to avoid bitter taste causing nausea or gagging
- Biltricide 600 mg tablets are scored and can be broken into four equal segments at the notches to adjust the dose by body weight
- Praziquantel 600 mg tablets are also scored and can be split into four segments the same way
- For children under 6 years old, tablets may be crushed or dissolved and mixed into semi-solid food or liquid — use within 1 hour of mixing
📊 Praziquantel across the U.S. market
How Praziquantel 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.
Also listed with the FDA, not a patient dose form: Powder (13) — bulk drug substance sold to compounders/manufacturers and multi-item kits. These aren’t counted in the dose-form total above.
Share of FDA-listed product records by manufacturer — FDA National Drug Code Directory. Record counts are not sales or prescription volume.
📈 How widely Praziquantel is used
A general measure of how commonly Praziquantel is prescribed, based on Medicaid — one of the largest public drug programs. The figure below is prescriptions filled in Q1–Q4 2025, summed across every form and brand of the drug.
Think of this as a proxy for how widely Praziquantel is used, drawn from freely available public data. Medicaid is just one program — these numbers don’t include Medicare, other government coverage, or commercial and cash-pay prescriptions, so real-world use is higher than what’s shown here.
How commonly is Praziquantel prescribed? Of the 1,596 medications we measure, Praziquantel ranks #1,240 by Medicaid prescriptions — more than 22% of them.
Utilization by Praziquantel product
Pick a product to see its own Medicaid numbers. Each chip is one clinical product — a specific strength & dosage form as defined by RxNorm — with brand-name and generic versions combined.
praziquantel 600 MG Oral Tablet
Summed across the 1 of 3 listed NDC products with Medicaid activity — every brand and generic of this exact strength & form. RxNorm 198140
Shares are of the Medicaid prescriptions shown here. Product grouping follows RxNorm (the National Library of Medicine’s drug terminology), so “one product” means one strength & dosage form regardless of manufacturer. Dollar figures are gross Medicaid reimbursement before mandatory rebates — rebates (often large, especially for brand-name drugs) are confidential, so actual net cost to Medicaid is lower than shown.
Source: Medicaid State Drug Utilization Data (CMS), aggregated by generic ingredient — summed across every NDC (all brands, strengths, salt forms and dosage forms) of Praziquantel, and across all states and both fee-for-service and managed-care claims. A general popularity signal; it excludes Medicare, commercial insurance and cash prescriptions, so it is not total U.S. use. Based on the 1 of 3 listed Praziquantel NDCs with Medicaid activity.
🔍 Compare Praziquantel products
A representative set of FDA-listed product records for Praziquantel — 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 💊Tablet | ||||
| 600 mg | — | Bayer AG | DRUG FOR FURTHER PROCESSING | View NDC → |
| 600 mg | Oral | Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. × 3 listings | NDA | View NDC → |
| 600 mg | Oral | Endo USA, Inc. | ANDA | View NDC → |
| 600 mg | Oral | Par Health USA, LLC | ANDA | View NDC → |
| 600 mg | Oral | Par Pharmaceutical, Inc. | ANDA | View NDC → |
| 💊Bulk drug substance | ||||
| 1 kg/kg | — | Alivira Animal Health Limited | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Chromo Laboratories India Private Limited | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 25 kg/25 kg | — | Cipla Ltd. | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 500 g/500 g | — | Darmerica, Llc | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Hisun Pharmaceutical (Nantong) Co., Ltd. | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 g/g | — | Kalchem International Inc | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 g/g | — | Letco Medical, Llc | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 g/g | — | Medisca Inc. | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Micro-Macinazione SA | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Minsheng Group Shaoxing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Pcas | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 g/g | — | Qingdao Biopeptek Co., Ltd. | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
| 1 kg/kg | — | Solara Active Pharma Sciences Limited | BULK INGREDIENT | View NDC → |
Showing 20 of 20 products — FDA National Drug Code Directory. See every product, package size and price: browse all 20 Praziquantel 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 Praziquantel — 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 Praziquantel 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 Praziquantel 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 ingredient concept (IN). The branches below show its dose-form concepts (SCDF), then the available clinical drug and strength concepts (SCD). Combination products remain separate concepts with their own pages.
RxCUI 8628 4 dose forms · 8 strengths
-
Dose form (SCDF) Chewable Tablet RxCUI 2668043No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 23 MGRxCUI 273383734 MGRxCUI 2668044 -
Dose form (SCDF) Injectable Solution RxCUI 892288No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 56.8 MG/MLRxCUI 892289 -
Dose form (SCDF) Oral Suspension RxCUI 2712067No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 50 MG/MLRxCUI 2712068 -
Dose form (SCDF) Oral Tablet RxCUI 373563In current FDA listingsClinical drug / strength (SCD) 23 MGRxCUI 89577734 MGRxCUI 895782150 MGRxCUI 246301600 MGRxCUI 198140
Look up RxCUI 8628 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 Praziquantel 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
Praziquantel belongs to the Anthelmintic 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 2 FDA-filed SPL label sets 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. Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals 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.