<story><title>Despite concerns, FDA approves new opioid 10x more powerful than Fentanyl</title><url>https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2018/11/02/fda-dsuvia-fentanyl-approval/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sweetcherrypie</author><text>Naloxone is the drug used to block the effects of opioids. LE carry them, but at the cost of $4500 for two injectors. The Narcan spray is slightly lest costly iirc. I&amp;#x27;m a uni student working on designing an auto-injector that could be used instead (the medicine itself is very cheap) and potentially to administer epinepherine too (also a case of cheap medicine - expensive administration device).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve made some progress but have no mechanical design experience. I&amp;#x27;m not optimistic about the time period needed for FDA approval so I&amp;#x27;m really doing it for the learning experience. I&amp;#x27;d love some help!</text></comment>
<story><title>Despite concerns, FDA approves new opioid 10x more powerful than Fentanyl</title><url>https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2018/11/02/fda-dsuvia-fentanyl-approval/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>etrevino</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth noting here that not every opioid is metabolized the same.  I can&amp;#x27;t speak for this medicine, but different metabolic pathways are used to process opioids.[1]  Having more tools in your toolkit means that you are more likely to be able to treat a patient&amp;#x27;s pain.&lt;p&gt;That being said, I think that one of the major uses for this drug will be to treat acute pain in chronic pain patients.  Those patients aren&amp;#x27;t opioid naive and may need something that will &amp;quot;override&amp;quot; the tolerance these patients have developed.  I&amp;#x27;m guessing that they&amp;#x27;d also work for patients on the opioid agonist&amp;#x2F;antagonist Buprenorphine, which is used for chronic pain, but tends to block other opiates.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, while potent, this drug appears to wear off very quickly.  That&amp;#x27;s going to be key here, because it&amp;#x27;s simply not useful unless you&amp;#x27;re able to administer a high quantity of the medicine.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; To boot, I believe that the manufacturer claims that this drug has less cognitive side effects than other opioids. [2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC2704133&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC2704133&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acelrx.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;arx-04&amp;#x2F;MHSRS%20ProjTeamPresentation%202016%20FINAL%2008_10_16%20MRC-0076.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acelrx.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;arx-04&amp;#x2F;MHSRS%2...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>