Flanax/Flanax Forte Mechanism of Action

Pharmacology: Naproxen sodium is a nonsteroidal agent. It is a non-narcotic analgesic agent with marked anti-inflammatory actions. It has demonstrated these properties in human clinical studies and classical animal test systems. It exhibits its anti-inflammatory effect even in adrenalectomized animals, indicating that its action is not mediated through the pituitary-adrenal axis. It inhibits prostaglandin synthetase, as do other nonsteroidal analgesic/anti-inflammatory agents. As with other agents, however, the exact mechanism of its anti-inflammatory and analgesic actions is not known. Naproxen sodium is not a central nervous system depressant and does not induce metabolizing enzymes.
Pharmacokinetics: Naproxen sodium is freely soluble in water and is rapidly and completely absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract after oral administration. Because of this rapid and complete absorption, significant plasma levels and onset of pain relief are obtained in patients within 20 min of administration. It has a mean biological half-life of approximately 13 hrs. At therapeutic levels, it is >99% bound to serum albumin.
Approximately 95% of a naproxen sodium dose is excreted in the urine as unchanged naproxen, 6-O-desmethylnaproxen and their conjugates. The rate of excretion has been found to coincide closely with the rate of drug disappearance from the plasma.