New Painkillers Designed to Eliminate Opioid Addiction
- Angel Lai
- Feb 3
- 2 min read
On January 30, 2025, The U.S Food and Drug Administration announced that they have
approved a new first-in-class non-opioid analgesics by the name of Journavx (suzetrigine).
Presenting patients with a new pharmaceutical approach in over 20 years to relieve moderate to severe acute pain in adults after surgeries.
“Today’s approval is an important public health milestone in acute pain management,” said
Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, J.D., M.D., acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation
and Research. “A new non-opioid analgesic therapeutic class for acute pain offers an opportunity to mitigate certain risks associated with using an opioid for pain and provides patients with another treatment option.”
Over-reliance on opioids causes unhealthy addictions. According to the CDC (National Center for Health Statistics), overdoses on opioids have been estimated to have caused a staggering 84,181 deaths in 2022 and 81,023 deaths in 2023.
Across clinical trials with 874 patients, Journavx reported more efficiencies in reducing pain and improving pain intensity after surgeries when compared to a placebo. It is important to note that although Journavx showed better results against a placebo, it did not outperform common opioid-acetaminophen combination pills.
“Is not its efficacy, but rather its side effect profile, including the absence of addiction potential,” Dr. Steven Cohen, a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician.
Common side effects that patients have reported to experience after usages of Journavx includes but aren’t limited to, itching, muscle spasms, increased blood level of creatine phosphokinase, and rash.
Being several times more expensive than opioids which are often sold at $1, the listing prices for Journavx is $ 15.50 per pill.
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