How can the same medication (e.g. ibuprofen) be designed to target specific body parts? Is that just marketing, or does the formulation make a difference?

Question

I see adverts all the time, ibuprofen designed to target joint and knee pain… then the next ibuprofen one might be targeted for headaches… I always wonder whether either would do the same job as the other one as they’re both ibuprofen.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Ibuprofen is just an anti inflammatory. They probably run adds for joint pain to make sure people don’t think it’s just a headache medecine.