Didanosine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Didanosine is a medicine sold in the U.S. under 2 brand and generic names. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Available as
- Tablet, chewable · Capsule · Oral pellets
- Sold as
- 2 products — Videx and Videx Ec
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
Every didanosine product we track (2)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
| # | Drug | Rating | Type | Form | Generic? | Pharmacy pays | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 72/100 | Prescription | Tablet | No data | — | View → | |
| 2 | 72/100 | Prescription | Capsule | No data | — | View → |
What didanosine pills look like
Imprint codes, colour and shape from the FDA’s labelling data. Match the imprint on your pill — or search any imprint.
| Imprint | Strength | Colour | Shape | Maker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| barr;250mg;589 | 250 mg | white | capsule | — |
| barr;400mg;590 | 400 mg | white | capsule | — |
| barr;250mg;589 | 250 mg | blue, white | capsule | — |
Didanosine and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for didanosine: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadDidanosine has been removed from the US market. No published information is available on the use of didanosine during breastfeeding. Didanosine is not recommended during breastfeeding. Achieving and maintaining viral suppression with antiretroviral therapy decreases breastfeeding transmission risk to less than 1%, but not zero. Individuals with HIV who are on antiretroviral therapy with a sustained undetectable viral load and who choose to breastfeed should be supported in this decision. If a viral load is not suppressed, banked pasteurized donor milk or formula is recommended.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised July 15, 2024. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about didanosine
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 4,125 reports naming didanosine, and the FDA flagged 96% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- foetal exposure during pregnancy315 reports
- drug resistance278 reports
- lipodystrophy acquired261 reports
- viral mutation identified218 reports
- virologic failure198 reports
- eyelid ptosis190 reports
- mitochondrial toxicity189 reports
- treatment failure183 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean didanosine caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take didanosine with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run didanosine against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What brand names is didanosine sold under?
We track 2 didanosine-containing products in the U.S.: Videx and Videx Ec. They are the same active ingredient; they differ in form, manufacturer, price and FDA recall record.
What forms does didanosine come in?
Across the brands we track, didanosine is currently marketed as tablet, chewable, capsule and oral pellets, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic didanosine?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled didanosine product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Didanosine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/didanosine
- MLA
- “Didanosine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/didanosine.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for didanosine on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.