A new painkiller that is said to be free of addiction risks may be transformative for treatment of acute pain, according to local medical professionals.
“I think it could be a potentially groundbreaking medication,” said Dr. Richard Gao, anesthesiologist and chronic pain physician with Allegheny Health Network.
“I definitely think it has the potential to be really helpful to a lot of people,” said Karlyn A. Edwards, clinical psychologist at UPMC and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
But for some, the claims by Vertex Pharmaceuticals that Journavx is not habit-forming, unlike opioid painkillers, leaves them a bit skeptical — it’s something they’ve heard before, from the makers of those opioids.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Tim Phillips, director of Westmoreland County’s Department of Community Relations and Prevention. “If we have an alternative, it’s always a positive.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Journavx for acute pain, the type that typically stems from surgeries or injuries. Vertex started its research in the 2000s when accidental drug overdoses were skyrocketing, driven by overprescribing of opioid painkillers, the Associated Press reported.
Researchers conducted two clinical trials in which patients having a bunionectomy or abdominoplasty, or tummy tuck, were randomly assigned Journavx after their surgeries, The New York Times reported. The new drug eased pain as much as a combination acetaminophen/hydrocodone pill.
Both news outlets reported Journavx is expected to cost $15 per pill.
“That’s going to limit its reach to a number of patients who would not be able to afford the medication,” Edwards said.
Opioids bind to receptors in the brain that receive nerve signals, reducing pain. Journavx instead blocks the pain in the nerves before it gets to the brain, the news outlets reported.
Gao and Edwards hope the new drug can be studied more to see if it could benefit patients who have chronic pain. Most of Gao’s patients with chronic pain are aware of the addiction dangers associated with opioids, whether or not they’ve had personal experience with it, he said.
In her research related to chronic pain, opioid use and stigma, Edwards said patients can be wary about bringing up an opioid addiction to their doctor or seeking treatment in fear that they might be prescribed an opioid.
But Journavx could provide a different option for patients, at least for acute pain.
”Even a handful of opioids could really put a patient down a path of addiction,” Gao said.
Caution after OxyContin claims
Despite the nonaddictive benefits of Journavx being reported, Phillips said he isn’t going to jump on the bandwagon just yet.
Similar claims decades ago by Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, stick in his mind. Purdue Pharma has been sued across the country, and locally in Southwestern Pennsylvania, by governments and people who lost loved ones from opioid use.
The company has paid millions to settle lawsuits related to the drug, which was released in the mid-1990s and aggressively marketed. After patients found it harder to get opioids when those prescriptions stopped, some turned to heroin, and now fentanyl.
In Westmoreland County, 81% of people who died in 2023 from accidental drug overdose death had fentanyl in their system, according to coroner statistics.
The 2011 coroner’s report noted that the office had seen an increase in prescription drug overdoses annually. That year, oxycodone, which is in OxyContin, contributed to 33% of drug overdose deaths.
“Look at the history you have with the OxyContin mess,” Phillips said. “We ended up with this mess we have now.”