Pravastatin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands

Pravastatin is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.

By the pharmaranks editorial teamReviewed against the FDA (openFDA label, NDC Directory & Enforcement) sourcesUpdated Jul 24, 2026How we research

Key facts

Available as: Tablet
Sold as: Pravachol
Prescription?: Prescription only
Generic available?: Not in our catalog
Half-life: about 1.8 hours
What the pharmacy pays: about $2 for a 30-count supply — not your price

Every pravastatin product we track (1)

Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.

Only one: Pravachol.

What pravastatin pills look like

Imprint codes, colour and shape from the FDA’s labelling data. Match the imprint on your pill — or search any imprint.

Pravastatin pill imprints
Imprint	Strength	Colour	Shape	Maker
APO;PRA;20	20 mg	yellow	round	—
APO;PRA;40	40 mg	green	round	—
G5;10	10 mg	yellow	round	—
G5;20	20 mg	yellow	rectangle	—
G5;40	40 mg	green	rectangle	—
B;20	20 mg	white	rectangle	—
B;40	40 mg	white	rectangle	—
B;40	40 mg	white	rectangle	—

Combination products containing pravastatin

A combination is a different drug — different dosing, different warnings. It is listed here so you can find it, not so you can substitute it.

Pravigard Pac (Copackaged)

Pravastatin recalls

From the FDA Enforcement database. A recall covers specific lots — not the drug as a whole.

How long pravastatin keeps

No pravastatin label we read sets a separate limit for after opening, but they do specify how it must be stored — and the stability behind any date assumes those conditions.

Does pravastatin expire? The in-use limits and storage rules from its labels

Pravastatin and breastfeeding

From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.

Levels of pravastatin in milk are low, but no relevant published information exists with its use during breastfeeding. The consensus opinion is that women taking a statin should not breastfeed because of a concern with disruption of infant lipid metabolism. However, others have argued that children homozygous for familial hypercholesterolemia are treated with statins beginning at 1 year of age, that statins have low oral bioavailability, and risks to the breastfed infant are low, especially with pravastatin and rosuvastatin. Until more data become available, an alternate drug may be preferred, especially while nursing a newborn or preterm infant.

Full LactMed record for pravastatin: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider instead

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised July 15, 2026. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.

What people report to the FDA about pravastatin

The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 20,174 reports naming pravastatin, and the FDA flagged 68% 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:

fatigue1,344 reports
diarrhoea1,182 reports
nausea1,009 reports
dyspnoea1,002 reports
headache900 reports
fall893 reports
dizziness803 reports
arthralgia748 reports

Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean pravastatin 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 26, 2026.

How long pravastatin stays in your system

The elimination half-life of pravastatin is about 1.8 hours. The FDA label reports an elimination half-life of about 1.8 hours for pravastatin itself; the half-life for total radioactivity (parent plus metabolites) is 77 hours, but the main metabolite (SQ 31,906) has only 1/10 to 1/40 of the parent's activity, so there is no potent active metabolite that meaningfully outlasts the drug. Unlike simvastatin and lovastatin, pravastatin is not a prodrug — it is given in its active form. Despite the short blood half-life, the cholesterol-lowering effect persists over once-daily dosing. Systemic exposure rises in severe kidney impairment (higher AUC/Cmax) and can increase markedly with liver impairment.

Pravastatin Sodium Tablet — FDA Label (DailyMed), Clinical Pharmacology / Pharmacokinetics ↗

Half-life is how long the body takes to clear half a dose. It is not the same as how long a drug test can detect it, and it varies with age, kidney and liver function.

Related calculators

How long it stays in your system →

Frequently asked questions

How long does pravastatin stay in your system?

The elimination half-life of pravastatin is about 1.8 hours — that is how long the body takes to clear half of a dose. The FDA label reports an elimination half-life of about 1.8 hours for pravastatin itself; the half-life for total radioactivity (parent plus metabolites) is 77 hours, but the main metabolite (SQ 31,906) has only 1/10 to 1/40 of the parent's activity, so there is no potent active metabolite that meaningfully outlasts the drug. Unlike simvastatin and lovastatin, pravastatin is not a prodrug — it is given in its active form. Despite the short blood half-life, the cholesterol-lowering effect persists over once-daily dosing. Systemic exposure rises in severe kidney impairment (higher AUC/Cmax) and can increase markedly with liver impairment. Half-life is not the same as how long a drug test can detect the drug, and it varies with age, kidney and liver function.

Can you take pravastatin 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 pravastatin against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.

What forms does pravastatin come in?

Across the brands we track, pravastatin is currently marketed as tablet, 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 pravastatin?

We do not currently list a generic-labelled pravastatin 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.

Has pravastatin been recalled?

The FDA's Enforcement database lists at least 5 recall records whose product description mentions pravastatin. The most recent: Pravastatin Sodium Tablets (Mar 13, 2025). A recall applies to specific lots, not to the drug as a whole — check the record for the affected lot numbers.

Cite this page

APA: pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Pravastatin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/pravastatin
MLA: “Pravastatin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/pravastatin.

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 pravastatin on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.