The finances do not make sense for this to become a street abused drug. As a substitute for IV morphine and used as a military battlefield friendly pain killer, it is going to be priced accordingly. That is not cheap! Addicts do not go for an expensive fix and the therapeutic dose will not produce the euphoria that an addict is looking for. I think Dr. Brown may have ulterior motives in his opposition and the fact that the FDA did not reschedule the AdCom meeting makes me think that they may have been aware of this. As for Sen. Markey, what does he have to lose with an uninformed stance against a new opioid delivery system for an opioid that has already been used for decades in IV form. Not much. Sure there is an illicit opioid crisis in the US, so the equally uninformed population will think this guy is making a real stance against the continuation of this crisis. The risk just is not there and the AdCom got it right with the approval vote. If this product is not approved, blame big pharma influence and uninformed politicians grandstanding.
AcelRx’s chief medical officer, Pamela Palmer, told BuzzFeed News that although sufentanil is a more potent opioid than fentanyl, the 30 microgram dose of the tablet delivers less of an opioid effect than the bigger doses in other painkillers do. The benefit of the tablet, packaged individually instead of in a bottle of pills, is that it delivers pain relief quickly, without an injection.
“I don’t think other people would want it — it won’t deliver the effect that illicit drug users want in such a very low dose,” Palmer said. Because of the low dosage, the company found that the drug worked without dangerous side effects even on elderly cancer patients who had never taken opioids before, she noted.
What’s more, Palmer said, “the Defense Department asked us for this drug.”
