RE: Interesting Read5 Dec 2019 18:50
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Https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_intelligence/As_the_opioid_crisis_grabs_the_headlines,_the_search_for_safe_treatments_continues_1318652
As the opioid crisis grabs the headlines, the search for safe treatments continues
Indivior’s Gilles Picard charts a path to greater patient access and new therapies
Gilles Picard
Tackling the global crisis of addiction is not a labour for the faint-hearted. Rising levels of drug use are barbed with the complexities of opioid dependence and wreathed with the unpredictable wildfires of lawsuits.
The opioid crisis resulted in an alarming spike in premature deaths in the US – 130 fatalities a day attributed to opioid-related overdoses at one stage – and has focused attention on how Europe will cope with advancing issues.
Four major pharmaceutical companies recently agreed to pay $260m to settle the first wave of actions in the US, with some experts predicting final bills of around $50bn across the industry.
It is hardly the easiest climate in which to market an opioid-based drug to treat addiction, while at the same time developing new treatments, but Indivior, the British-based firm that was part of Reckitt Benckiser until 2014, is undaunted.
Its share price took a massive hit when it was indicted by the US Justice Department earlier this year over its Suboxone Film therapy for opioid and heroin addiction, but its robust response, more of which later, has not deflected its mission to create safe and effective drugs to deal with, rather than inflame, a crisis.
The company’s mantra ‘Addiction is a treatable chronic condition, not a moral failure’ is sustaining its R&D work and Gilles Picard (pictured above), its head of global strategy and European operations, said the company is close to new registrations in Europe for opioid addiction products.
“We don’t use that as a slogan; it is what we believe,” he said. “We aim to change people’s lives with treatments for addiction and we are pleased to see that, in recent years, more people are of the view that addiction is a chronic condition and not some moral failing.
High success rate
“We also believe that over the next few years many more people will have access to opioid addiction therapies. But we need societal change as well as drug development and it is clear that some countries have better established routes to treatment than others.
“Opioid agonist treatment is scientifically underpinned and has a high success rate. The figure I use is 70-60-50. It reduces the mortality risk by 70%, lowers the risk of hepatitis C infection by 60% and has a 50% lower risk of relapse. Not many addiction treatments can produce those figures.”
European healthcare structures are better constructed to deter an opioid crisis from reaching US proportions, with stricter marketing regulations, stronger prescribing rules and a more open and progressive approach to opioid agonist therapy and other forms of harm reduction acting as effective
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