Ritonavir: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Ritonavir 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.
Key facts
- Available as
- Powder · Tablet
- Sold as
- Norvir
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
- What the pharmacy pays
- about $20 for a 30-count supply — not your price
Every ritonavir 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: Norvir.
What ritonavir pills look like
Imprint codes, colour and shape from the FDA’s labelling data. Match the imprint on your pill — or search any imprint.
Combination products containing ritonavir
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.
Can you crush or split ritonavir?
At least one ritonavirproduct is labelled to be swallowed whole — crushing an extended-release tablet releases the whole day’s dose at once. Which applies depends on the form you were given.
What each ritonavir label says about crushing, splitting and chewingHow long ritonavir keeps
No ritonavir 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 ritonavir expire? The in-use limits and storage rules from its labelsRitonavir and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for ritonavir: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadRitonavir is excreted into milk in measurable concentrations and low levels can be found in the blood of some breastfed infants. No adverse reactions in breastfed infants have been reported. 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 May 15, 2026. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about ritonavir
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 27,811 reports naming ritonavir, and the FDA flagged 91% 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 pregnancy1,934 reports
- virologic failure1,350 reports
- diarrhoea1,058 reports
- maternal exposure during pregnancy946 reports
- nausea936 reports
- acute kidney injury895 reports
- exposure during pregnancy872 reports
- drug resistance867 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean ritonavir 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.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take ritonavir 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 ritonavir 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 ritonavir come in?
Across the brands we track, ritonavir is currently marketed as powder and 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 ritonavir?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled ritonavir 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). Ritonavir: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/ritonavir
- MLA
- “Ritonavir: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/ritonavir.
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 ritonavir on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.