Introduction: The treatment for functional dyspepsia (FD) (indigestion) remains unsatisfactory. Acotiamide is a new prokinetic that has been recently approved and used in Japan for the treatment of FD.
Areas covered: This review introduces the pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics and efficacy data from current clinical trials from literature sourced using the PubMed search tools. Future principles for developing drugs and designing clinical trials to test them for treating FD are also discussed.
Expert opinion: Acotiamide can contribute to the treatment of the specific subset of symptoms defined as postprandial FD by reducing the impaired fundic relaxation and accommodation after eating. The agent has the added benefit of a very good safety profile.
Keywords: acotiamide; functional dyspepsia.