<P> Both specialist and generalist physicians are not sufficiently aware of and do not communicate with patients about the cost to them of medication . </P> <P> Randall Stafford of the Stanford School of Medicine published a study in 2002 of common prescription medications in the United States in which he evaluates pill splitting for "potential cost savings and clinical appropriateness". The study identifies eleven prescription medications that satisfied the study criteria, based on the American pharmaceutical cost structure, pill formulation, and dosages of the time . Most of the medications listed in the table from the psychiatric drug class are antidepressants . </P> <P> Not all tablets split equally well . In a 2002 study, Paxil, Zestril and Zoloft split cleanly with 0% rejects . Glucophage was described as a hard tablet, requiring significant force, causing tablet halves to fly . Glyburide exhibited very poor splitting with many splitting into multiple pieces . Hydrodiuril and Oretic crumbled . Lipitor did not split cleanly, and the coating peeled . The diamond shaped Viagra tablets made location of the midline difficult . The worst result reported was Oretic 25 mg in which 60% of tablets failed to split to within 15% of target weight . </P> <P> Some drugs have few different uses, and are usually sold in different packages and different doses for different applications . The price for some applications may be very different from that for other purposes . One example is Minoxidil, which is well known as a hair - growth stimulant; the same drug under the name Loniten is used for blood pressure control in much larger doses at a much lower price per unit weight . </P>

Does cutting a pill in half make it stronger