Chemical Structure and When it was Licensed
Chemical name: 5-ethyldihydro-5-phenyl-4,6 (1H, 5H) pyrimidinedione.
The effectiveness of primidone in epilepsy was first demonstrated in 1949 (Whitty 1953). It was introduced a year later by the Imperial Chemical Industry (ICI) (now known as AstraZeneca) in the UK and Germany. In 1952, its effectiveness in the treatment of patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy was demonstrated, and it was introduced in 1954 (as Mysoline®) by Wyeth in the USA (Williams 1956).
Mode of Action
Primidone has an anticonvulsant activity, as do its two main metabolites: Phenobarbital and Other Barbiturates and phenylethylmalonamide (PEMA) (El-Masri and Portier 1998) (Figs. 279-1 and 279-2 ). Primidone acts through interactions with voltage-gated sodium channels that inhibit high-frequency repetitive firing of action potentials (MacDonald and Kelly 1995).
Structure of primidone
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Mifsud, J. (2010). Primidone. In: Panayiotopoulos, C.P. (eds) Atlas of Epilepsies. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-128-6_279
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