Has revamped OxyContin reduced abuse of opioids?

WASHINGTON » Dr. Raeford Brown was uniquely positioned to help the U.S. government answer a critical question: Is a new version of the painkiller OxyContin helping fight the national opioid epidemic?

An expert in pain treatment at the University of Kentucky, Brown led a panel of outside experts advising the Food and Drug Administration on opioids that have been reformulated to deter snorting and injecting.

There’s just one problem: Neither the company that makes OxyContin nor the FDA has allowed the experts to see data on whether it reduces abuse.

“We asked for that data probably 40 or 50 times in last four or five years and were denied every time,” said Brown, whose term as an FDA adviser ended in March.

Nearly a decade ago, the FDA approved reformulated OxyContin and told the company, Purdue Pharma, that it would be evaluated on whether the new version decreased cases of addiction, overdose and death. The data submitted by Purdue to answer that question remains secret.

“It’s in the public interest that we all know what these drugs are doing and yet none of us can see it, which is really terrifying when you think about it,” Brown told The Associated Press.

In 2015, Brown and his colleagues were supposed to review follow-up data on OxyContin at a meeting in Washington, but the FDA canceled it only days before. Purdue had pulled its application to update OxyContin’s label with new information on abuse, saying it wanted more time to analyze the data. Such meetings are typically planned

JESSICA HILL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE In this file photo, Christine Gagnon, of Southington, Conn., holds a sign during a protest with others who have lost loved ones to OxyContin and opioid overdoses, outside the Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Conn.