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Nurofen

drug brand name

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ2915868 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nurofen is a brand of range of pain-relief medication containing ibuprofen made by the English-Dutch company Reckitt Benckiser. Introduced in 1983, the Nurofen brand was acquired following Reckitt Benckiser's acquisition of Boots healthcare international in 2005 for £1.93 billion, which included Nurofen, Strepsils, and Clearasil. The brand is primarily marketed and sold in the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In 2016, it was the biggest selling branded over-the-counter medication sold in Great Britain, with sales of £116.8 million.

Variants

There are 11 variants of Nurofen, all of which contain ibuprofen as an active ingredient. The ibuprofen is variously formulated as the free acid, or the lysine salt. For oral formulations, i.e., taken by mouth, it is available in the conventional solid round tablet, a torpedo-shaped solid caplet, or may alternatively be in the form of a soft gel cap. It is also available as a topical gel, which is applied directly to the surface of the skin. In some cases these are marketed as being useful for treating specific types of pain; such as back pain or period pain. The primary difference among the various formulations is speed and duration of ibuprofen absorption.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nurofen” as drug brand name. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1983, 2005, 2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Nurofen, drug and brand can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as drug brand name. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2915868. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1983, 2005 and 2016.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Nurofen”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Nurofen primary sources, Nurofen archive and Nurofen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Nurofen”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Nurofen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.