It's an MAOI AD. It's been incredibly effective for me (in the context that nothing truly stabilizes me, but this has been the best for depression and I really did get about a year and a half of stability at first and then my AP started to slowly not work until my recent change). Because it is an MAOI if you are on anything but the starting dose there are food, drink and medication restrictions but it's easy to get used to them.

It's been out about 10 years. I've been on it for 6.5 years. I mostly have (and always have had) mixed episodes so I can't say it has alleviated my biggest problem but until the last year I didn't have too many just depressed episodes (if any, I think I was mixed or nothing on it but it's hard to remember) since I started it. It's been an amazing drug for me. You have to be compliant with the restrictions which I've found to be easy. Lots of pdocs avoid it because MAOIs, especially older ones, were more volatile but Emsam is less so. I even had a hospital dr refer to it as "not a true MAOI".