Non-opioid painkillers get federal boost
Federal officials said they are working to get new non-opioid painkillers onto the market, along with opioid treatment drugs, part of the administration’s strategy to address an addiction epidemic that shows no signs of abating.
To people who became addicted after they were prescribed or tried pharmaceutical opioids as teens, the alternatives come too late but are still welcome news.
David Camp struggled with prescription pain pills starting when he was 19 and a college football teammate shared some he got for an injury. Camp, 26, has been in recovery for nearly four years.
“I have been trying to help dozens of friends and family members who struggled with opioid addictions that started from legitimate prescriptions,” said Camp, a client services representative with the drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility Lakeview Health in Jacksonville.
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, a physician, talked Tuesday about some of the administration’s strategies. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar defended President Trump’s talk of sentencing drug dealers and traffickers to death.
“It’s using the authorities we have to the maximum extent possible,” Azar said. “So ‘Katie, bar the door.’ This is a crisis. There are 116 people dying a day.”
The NIH talked for months with more than 30 drug companies about a partnership to develop the non-opioid alternatives, Collins said. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health panel is considering proposals this week, including one that would encourage research on new non-addictive pain medications.
“So many people are dying, there is clearly an urgency to improving the tools that we have to help them,” said psychiatrist Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Medication-assisted treatment to curb cravings for opioids can improve the chance of recovery, Volkow said. Still, about half of patients will relapse six months after treatment.
Developing drugs that reduce how often patients have to take opioids is one key to treatment, Volkow said. Only one treatment may be needed every six months.